Homes evacuated in Scotland

Heavy downpours of rain over most of Eastern Scotland have cause flooding, power cuts and closed major roads - with the problems almost certain to continue through the night.

Heavy downpours of rain over most of Eastern Scotland have cause flooding, power cuts and closed major roads - with the problems almost certain to continue through the night.

In Edinburgh, the Water of Leith and the Braid Burn both burst their banks causing extensive flooding along their course in the Stockbridge, Bonnington, where a wall collapsed, and Warriston districts.

Several hundred homes in the Mid Liberton area were also flooded.

Forty-one people from Parkview residential home and 24 from a private nursing home, both in Peffermill, in the south-east of the city, were evacuated by Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade personnel using boats.

They were given alternative, safer accommodation, a City of Edinburgh Council spokesman said.

Thirty-seven residents of Ford's Road home for the elderly in Gorgie, in the west of the city, were given accommodation in hospital after they were evacuated.

Flooding also caused serious problems in the Murrayfield area, including around the national rugby stadium, and a power cut left some 500 homes without electricity.

The city bypass around the capital had to be closed between Lothianburn and Gogar because of heavy surface water and fears of more running off the Pentland Hills which stand above the road.