Last year, Storm Babet tore through Chesterfield in Derbyshire, an at-risk town that had been hit before. Could the devastation have been avoided?

The flood alert was issued on the morning of 21 October 2023. Storm Babet was coming. Be prepared.

Paul Gilbert, a 47-year-old landscape gardener from Chesterfield in Derbyshire, did what he always did when a flood alert came in: he went to check on his mum, Maureen.

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Government’s farming recovery fund scheme stipulates proximity to designated major rivers

Farmers who have their entire cropping land submerged underwater have found they are ineligible for a government flooding hardship fund – because their farms are too far from a major river.

According to the Met Office, 1,695.9mm of rain fell from October 2022 to March 2024, the highest amount for any 18-month period in England since the organisation started collecting comparable data in 1836. Scientists have said climate breakdown is likely to cause more intense periods of rain in the UK.

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When the Ahr River burst its banks in 2021, 188 people died and whole villages and towns were destroyed. Could it all happen again?

When the waters rose, Meike and Dörte Näkel weren’t worried. People in this part of the world, the Ahr valley in Germany, are used to it. The river flooded in 2016, bursting its banks and rising almost four metres , and before that in 2013, 1910 and 1804. Many lives were lost in 1804 and 1910, in catastrophes remembered only in stories read from history books to bored schoolchildren. The sisters’ great-grandmother Anna Meyer lived through the 1910 flood, although she never spoke of it to Meike and Dörte.

They are the fifth generation of their family to make wine in the village of Dernau. Meike, 44, is blond, thoughtful and a little serious; Dörte, 42, who has dark hair that comes down to her waist, is quicker to laugh. Both have the same steady gaze. Their father, Werner Näkel, is a hero in the Ahr, widely credited with transforming it from a place where sugar was added routinely to cheap, bad wine into a region with award‑winning vintages.

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Kremlin official warns of more difficult days ahead after towns and cities overwhelmed by major rivers swollen by snowmelt

Russia and Kazakhstan have ordered more than 100,000 people to evacuate after swiftly melting snow swelled rivers beyond bursting point in the worst flooding in the area for at least 70 years.

The deluge of meltwater overwhelmed many settlements in the Ural mountains, Siberia and areas of Kazakhstan close to rivers such as the Ural and Tobol, which local officials said had risen by metres in a matter of hours to the highest levels ever recorded.

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Emergency services dealing with incidents in Littlehampton and ‘severe flooding’ at a holiday park

The River Arun has overflowed in West Sussex with rescue operations under way in the seaside town of Littlehampton and warnings of severe flood waters as a result of Storm Kathleen.

“Our crews are supporting rescue operations in Littlehampton near Ferry Road and Rope Walk where the River Arun has burst its banks, leading to severe flooding,” West Sussex fire and rescue service said on X.

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In 1941, thousands of people died in Huaraz when the natural dam on a lake above the city gave way. Now, melting glaciers are raising the chances of it happening again

• Photographs by Harriet Barber

Lake Palcacocha is high in the Cordillera Blanca range of the Peruvian Andes, sitting above the city of Huaraz at an altitude of about 4,500 metres. When the lake broke through the extensive moraines, or natural dams, holding it in place on 13 December 1941, it sent nearly 10m cubic metres of water and debris into the narrow valley towards the city, 1,500 metres below.

The result was one of the most devastating glacial lake outburst floods – or “GLOFs” – ever recorded. The force of the water altered the area’s geography for ever, and killed at least 1,800 people, and possibly as many as 5,000 .

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Heavy rainfall brings landslides to country’s south-east. Elsewhere, a wild temperature fluctuation in Iberia

Brazil was hit by devastating floods over the weekend that have so far claimed 20 lives in the resultant landslides and mudslides. There was heavy rainfall in parts of the south-east, including Rio de Janeiro, Petrópolis and the larger Espírito Santo region, with hourly rainfall totals of about 20mm recorded in places. Cumulative totals from Friday through Sunday were close to 250mm, particularly along the coast: this is far higher than the monthly average.

Landslides and mudslides occurred across the region, and a number of houses collapsed. Rescue operations are under way to look for people who may have been stranded by the floods. Although there may still be a few showers over the following days, the worst of the rain has now passed.

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From Atlantis to Noah, humans have always been fascinated by stories of sunken lands. But what do modern losses, such as Pett Level in Sussex and Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, say about our climate-change predicament?

When writer Gareth E Rees stands on the muddy foreshore at Pett Level in East Sussex, his mind turns to the Mesolithic peoples who hunted, lit fires and dreamed their very human dreams on the lands now subsumed by the steel grey swell of the English Channel.

It’s low tide at Pett Level and, as at every low tide, the withdrawing waters have exposed a landscape of twisted and pocked tree trunks that is illegible to many of today’s brisk dog-walkers and young families out on the migrating shingle.

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Welney landlord fears business may not survive impact of increasingly lengthy spells of flooding on customer numbers

Dennis Birch estimates his pub loses about £3,000 a week when the road into the village of Welney is closed because of flooding – and this winter, it was closed for a record-breaking 89 days.

Now labelled “the most flooded road in Britain”, Birch said he questions whether the 18th-century Lamb and Flag can survive the impact the flooding has on the number of customers coming through his door.

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