Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in northern England on Tuesday as officials warned a dam could collapse following severe flooding that has killed three people. Police and local authority officials said they had removed about 250 people from their homes near Rotherham in South Yorkshire after cracks appeared in the Ulley Dam."For the people in the area concerned, those who need to be moved have been," Chief Superintendent Matthew Jukes, the police commander for Rotherham, told BBC radio. He said it was difficult to tell if the wall would collapse."The situation is really not getting any better and not getting any worse fortunately," he said."It does have some cracks in it and there is just a steady flow of water at the moment which we're quite able to deal with in terms of the emergency response."
Structural engineers were working to shore up the dam and pump out water from a reservoir covering more than 30 acres four miles south of the town.
"The water, if it escapes, will run into a valley area but would fairly rapidly spread out," Chief Executive of Rotherham Council Mike Cuff told BBC Radio."It would reach the M1 motorway and it would then spread out to the areas we think that would be most affected. If the dam should burst we would be talking in terms of maybe 15 minutes or so before water would reach residential areas."
The Highways Agency said it had already closed the M1 in South Yorkshire because of the flooding. Weather forecasters predicted conditions would improve on Tuesday after the torrential downpours that killed three people. (Mirror)