Homes across UK breached by wastewater due to floods

Families across the UK have found their homes breached by wastewater as flood levels have risen.

Heavy rain across the UK has led to flooding across the whole country, with the Environment Agency issuing 186 flood warnings and one severe flood warning.

In some areas, over half of the monthly predicted rainfall fell in one 24-hour period.

Not only have the floods led to travel chaos, worsened by the Christmas rush to get home, but it has also caused many homes to be inundated with sewage.

Tim and Sharon King from Loughbrough told the Leicester Mercury that they have been forced to move to a hotel and do not know when they will be able to re-enter their home.

“The water rushed in really quickly and caused devastation,” he explained.

"It was flooded up to about three feet in my garage and between six inches and a foot in the house, with horrible black water.”

Families in Cambridge have had similar experiences.

Heavy rain has overloaded the pumping stations, filling the sewage networks with rainwater and forcing wastewater out.

Due to the high water levels, toilets and showers are also failing to drain correctly.

An Anglian Water spokeswoman told the Cambridge News that everything is being done to help address the situation, but due to the scale of the problem, residents may have to cope with the wastewater for a short while.

“Because of the extreme weather and the amount of work that’s required across the region at the moment, our usual response times have been slowed down,” she said.

“As soon as water levels go down residents should find they don’t have a problem.”

However, it is not just the sewage and wastewater causing problems as a result of the flooding.

Families in Wales were forced to flee their homes in the middle of the night when a 20ft retaining wall collapsed onto a row of terraced houses.

No one was injured in the landslide, but the tonnes of stone, mud and rumble have caused significant damage to properties.

The heavy rain is set to continue of the Christmas period, so conditions are unlikely to improve.