More rain to hit flooded areas

The town centre of Bentley, near Doncaster, was still completely submerged, with scores of houses under several feet of water.

Firefighters continued to pump water out of the area into the River Don using a large number of high volume pumps, and thousands of sandbags were in place to try to hold back any further flooding.

Firefighters used a boat to retrieve children's costumes from one building, so that the show could go on for a local theatre company due to perform on Sunday.

Speaking from the scene, Doncaster Mayor Martin Winter accepted that emotions were running high among residents who thought the emergency response to the flooding had been slow.

He told the BBC: "We've just had such high quantities of water, we just haven't been able to cope with it. The buck stops with me and I'm fine about that. We can always learn from experiences like this when we get time to evaluate what has happened."

He said the first priority had been securing the safety of Ulley Dam where there had been a risk that the dam wall could burst.

A spokeswoman at the South Yorkshire emergency control centre said: "Bentley and Toll Bar are still really our priority at the moment. Everywhere else is settling down a little bit. We're monitoring the river levels with the Environment Agency. It's still pretty much the same situation as yesterday."

The Environment Agency currently has five severe flood warnings in place for the north-east, with further disruption expected in South Yorkshire along the River Don and Ea Beck at Toll Bar, near Doncaster. There were also 31 flood warnings - 20 for the north-east, eight for East Anglia and three for the Midlands - as well as a large number of less serious flood watches.

A flood support centre has been set up in Worcester to co-ordinate fire and rescue resources nationwide to cope with the further outbreaks of bad weather. The unit is monitoring weather forecasts closely to try to anticipate where flash floods might occur. Insurers said the cost of the damage across the UK is expected to top £1 billion, with 27,000 homes and 5,000 businesses affected.