Woman saved from river in floods

Cloudbursts cause roads chaos with Bridge of Earn hit hardest

A woman was plucked to safety from a swollen Perthshire river near Dunkeld as thunderstorms brought torrential rain to parts of Scotland yesterday.

Roads and railways were affected by the afternoon storms and a house in Midlothian struck by lightning as more than an inch of rain fell in just a few hours.

Perthshire – in particular the Bridge of Earn area – bore the brunt of the Tayside rainfall as the deluge dumped by the slow-moving storm clouds stretched emergency services and led to some road closures.

The Dunkeld rescue drama is understood to have involved an outdoors group which was enjoying river activities within the Rumbling Bridge area during the late afternoon.

Although the party managed to escape the rapidly rising river, one female was caught in the floodwaters and had to be rescued.

She was attended to by paramedics at the scene and was not seriously injured.

Fire crews spent several hours in Bridge of Earn after flash floods threatened to pour into local homes and caused the closure of the Old Edinburgh Road as well as leading to flooding on Kintillo Road.

One resident said: “I’ve never seen it as bad as this, it just came out of nowhere.

Fire crews were called to the village shortly after 2.30pm and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said they had received numerous calls from worried residents.

Perth firefighters also dealt with teatime flooding in the city’s High Street.

Elsewhere, the occupants of a house in Mayfield, Midlothian, escaped injury when their home was hit by lightning and in Penicuik homes, schools and a leisure centre were all hit by floodwaters.

The flash floods had followed a yellow weather warning from the Met Office forecasting thunderstorms and the possibility of more than 40 millimetres of rain in just a few hours. There are no weather warnings in place for the Tayside and Fife area today.

In Northern Ireland a Co Antrim father and his children were seriously injured after being struck by lightning.

The 37-year-old had to be resuscitated after the Lisburn incident which left the dad and his five-year-old son in a critical condition. The man’s seven-year-old daughter also suffered serious burns in the lightning strike.

London was also badly hit, with three people left trapped in their cars after being submerged in flash floods, and in northern France a 77-year-old man trapped on a flooded road in a severe thunderstorm drowned in his car, the nation’s fifth victim after days of torrential rain. At least 19 people have died in floodwaters across Europe.