Downpour leads to road deaths and drownings

Eight people died after torrential rain caused flooding across Britain over the Christmas period and hundreds of homes were evacuated.

Eight people died after torrential rain caused flooding across Britain over the Christmas period and hundreds of homes were evacuated.

There was a flood alert on 270 rivers last night and weather forecasters warned that conditions would remain "difficult" up until New Year's Eve.

An accident in which two children were killed and a third injured could have been caused by ice on the road. Four-year-old Sid Price was critically injured when a police car he was travelling in with his mother, Shelleen, his twin brother, Neza, and two-year-old sister, Claudette, was involved in the multiple-car accident in Co Durham as they were being taken to a women's refuge on Boxing Day.

The search was called off yesterday for a 42-year-old fisherman, Donald MacLean, who was swept away on Christmas night after his dinghy capsized off the coast of Plockton, north-west Scotland. His 45-year-old companion, who managed to cling to the dinghy, was rescued.

On Christmas Day, an 18-year-old woman died when the car she was driving crashed into a milk tanker in Droxford, Hampshire. Police said the four other occupants of the car remained in hospital, two of them in a critical condition.

On Merseyside, 24-year-old Philip Stubbs, from Cardiff, died in the early hours of Christmas Day after being swept off a promenade at New Brighton, on the Wirral, into the River Mersey.

On Christmas Eve, 85-year-old John Winchester drowned after being trapped in his flooded bungalow in Galmpton, south Devon.

A crewman died from injuries when a Belgian cargo ship was hit by heavy seas eight miles south of the Isles of Scilly and a 44-year-old Ukrainian sailor is missing, presumed dead, after falling overboard from a cargo vessel mid-Channel in rough seas.

Four people remained in a serious condition last night after a sudden hail storm on the M6 at Leyland, Lancashire, caused a 20-vehicle pile-up at about 6pm on Boxing Day.