Storms hit UK, five dead

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Saturday, September 6, 2008

The Bristol Organic Food Festival was affected by the heavy rain
Image: Anonymous101.

Five people have now died from the storms that hit the United Kingdom today and yesterday.

One of the dead was a 27-year-old man from Stroud. He died while working in a construction site. A trench he was working in collapsed, with his death being caused by the five tonnes of soil that buried him. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

A motorcyclist was killed yesterday when crashing into a tree off the A66 due to the heavy gales.

A seventeen year old was killed after the vehicle she was traveling in was overturned. She was traveling with two others, who are currently still alive. Inspector Robert Price of Dyfed-Powys Police described the incident. "A 4x4 overturned and came to rest in a river. Three people have been airlifted to Bronglais Hospital, Aberystwyth, two of them suffering from hypothermia. One casualty tragically died following arrival at the hospital."

Two other people were also killed for different reasons.

The United Kingdom's government weather agency, the Met Office, yesterday put much of the UK on flood alert with severe weather warnings for the majority of England and Wales and much of Northern Ireland.

The office said that a total of ten regions have a greater than eighty percent chance of "severe or extreme weather." These regions were Southwest Scotland, Lothian and Borders, Northern Ireland, Wales, Northwest England, Northeast England, Yorkshire and Humber, the West Midlands, the East Midlands, Southwest England and London and Southeast England.

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