FLOODS FALL AND RISE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 244, 5 January 1928, Page 13

FLOODS FALL AND RISE

England’s Swollen Rivers NEW AREAS ARE INUNDATED By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. LONDON, Wednesday. THE flood situation to-day is better in some areas and worse in others. Dartford, in Kent, is one of the new areas badly affected. The River Darenth suddenly burst its banks during the night and to-day there were four feet of water in some parts of Dartford. Some 200 houses are flooded and their occupants are living in upstairs bedrooms.

rpHE Thames continues to rise and in places where it has overflowed its banks it is six or seven times the normal width. At Ciapton, in Bast London, many houses are marooned as the result of the overflowing of the Lea, a tributary of the Thames. Great areas of land are so changed In appearance that Captain Perry, v.ho was piloting an Imperial Airways liner from Cologne, had to set his course by the compass when flying over the south-eastern counties to Croydon airdrome, as if he were flying over the sea. Besides the floods, additional ciifficulty is created for road traffic by miniature avalanches, which in many places as a result of the thaw are falling from higher ground into the roadways. LOST MOTOR VEHICLES The telephone service organised by the - Automobile Association has proved of great value to motorists in search of informtion regarding the state of the roads, many of which are still blocked. A large number of motorists who were overtaken by the

snow have not yet recovered their machines, of which some are embedded in drifts, and a still larger number are stored in country garages in places where the blocked roads forced them to abandon them nearly a week ago. STORMY CHANNEL Conditions in the English Channel are again bad. A strong soutnwesterly gale is blowing, and heavy seas are running. This afternoon the. Boulogne to Folkestone boat had to be diverted to Dover. Among the many reports of damage and difficulties caused by the floods the most notable happening today was the collapse of a bridge over the London and North-Eastern Railway near Edmonton, on the main line from London to Cambridge. A mail train had only just passed. The line has been closed to traffic. This has caused considerable disorganisation, which would have been worse but for an old loop line, which has not been used for many years, but to which it was possible to divert the traffic for Cambridge.—A. and N.Z.