Banks may follow suit after UK weather-related claims on home insurance reach new high

Britain’s biggest building society has stopped granting mortgages on some properties where there is a high risk of flooding but said this affected only “a very limited number” of homes.

Nationwide’s head of property risk, Rob Stevens, said the lender used mapping technology to identify which homes were vulnerable to flooding, and it would decline to grant a mortgage to buy a property it deemed to be at high risk.

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Total deaths reach 76 and more than 130,000 displaced as weeks of flooding also affects east African neighbours

Seventy-six people in Kenya have died because of flooding triggered by torrential downpours since March, the government has said, warning residents “to brace for even heavier rainfall”.

Kenya and its east African neighbours have been battered by stronger than usual rain in recent weeks, compounded by the El Niño weather system.

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Rain in Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi has damaged farmland and infrastructure

Eastern Africa has experienced heavy rain in recent weeks, with Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi experiencing flooding. About 100,000 people have been displaced or otherwise affected in each country, with reported deaths reaching 32 in Kenya and 58 in Tanzania, alongside damage to farmland and infrastructure.

There are also fears that large areas of standing water could give rise to outbreaks of waterborne diseases.

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World Weather Attribution group says intensified El Niño effects caused torrential rain, but rules out cloud seeding as cause

Fossil fuels and concrete combined to worsen the “death-trap” conditions during the recent record flooding in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, a study has found.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution team said downpours in El Niño years, such as this one, had become 10-40% heavier in the region as a result of human-cased climate disruption, while a lack of natural drainage quickly turned roads into rivers.

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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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