Severe flood warnings with more heavy rain to come – BBC News

Further heavy rain could cause a danger to life and travel disruption, the Met Office has warned, a day after a schoolgirl died in a mudslide in North Yorkshire.

Some areas saw almost a month’s worth of rain on Wednesday and flood warnings remain in place.

Showers will continue to hit parts of the UK into Thursday.

TransPennine Express, ScotRail, Avanti West Coast and Caledonian Sleeper are among affected operators.

The West Coast Main Line between Carlisle and Lockerbie is blocked, National Rail Enquiries said.

Avanti West Coast has warned people not to travel north of Preston in Lancashire, writing in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that all routes “are currently blocked in both directions”.

Travel between Manchester and Scotland on the TransPennine Express has also been disrupted.

Political scientist Professor Sir John Curtice was among those to have their journey from London to Glasgow affected.

“My question to politicians this morning is can you please make the trains work,” he told the BBC’s Today programme in an interview regarding the upcoming general election.

A yellow warning for southern and eastern Scotland will be in place until 03:00BST on Friday.

An earlier amber warning for rain in parts of North Wales and north-west England since midday on Wednesday has now been cancelled.

Yellow warnings for the north of England, the Midlands, north and central Wales, western Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland have also been lifted.

The Met Office has warned that flooding and power cuts were possible.

Honister in Cumbria has been the worst hit so far with 110mm of rainfall.

The city of Carlisle, also in Cumbria, recorded 65.6mm of rain over a 24-hour period, according to the Met Office.

This amount of rain has quickly filled up the rivers and a severe flood warning remains in Cumbria, which means a danger to life.

Cumbria Police said a number of properties were affected in the Stockdalewath area, with one property evacuated.

“We do expect some impact to travel within Cumbria with some flood water in parts of the county,” said Chief Superintendent Mick Bird.

Flood warnings are also in force on other rivers in Scotland and England.

Heavy rain on Wednesday caused a mudslide at Carlton-in-Cleveland, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park – leaving one person dead.

She was later named as Leah Harrison, a Year 6 pupil at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Darlington.

North Yorkshire Police has asked the public to avoid the area where the mudslide happened.

The county received almost a month’s worth of rainfall on Wednesday, forecaster Mr Partridge said.

41.6mm of rain was recorded in a 24-hour period in Loftus, a town 20 miles (32km) away.