Clean-up as storms batter North

Flash floods brought chaos to roads in North Tyneside

A mopping up operation is taking place across the north-east of England after severe storms and torrential rain swept the region on Wednesday evening.

Electricity firm NEDL said at one point 98,000 homes were without power and extra staff were mobilised to deal with the emergency.

Fire control centres diverted calls to Cumbria to cope with the demand.

Passengers were forced to flee a Metro train on Tyneside after overhead power lines were hit by lightning.

Firefighters waited for NEDL staff to isolate the lines before leading passengers by torchlight for one mile along the track to a waiting bus at South Wardley Farm, Wardley, Gateshead.

Lightning hits

Tyneside and Sunderland were among the worst areas affected by the torrential rain.

Tyne and Wear Fire Brigade alone received almost 350 calls, most in the space of two hours.

Electricity supply firms said distribution equipment had suffered about 100 lightning hits during the storms.

About 5,000 homes remained without power in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the North East on Thursday morning.

Ann Walker, from NEDL, said: "There are pockets of customers scattered all over the region without electricity.

"There was lightning at 0100 BST Thursday so there may be more damage overnight and people have not realised they were without power until they woke up this morning.

"If you haven't already reported the loss of your supply, contact us.

"Direct lightning strikes are very dangerous and we had to suspend operations last night because it became too dangerous for our staff to work.

"But they were working before daybreak and will continue until we get everybody back on."

She added that all planned work had been cancelled while resources are diverted to restoring supplies as quickly as possible.

The Environment Agency reported no major flood alerts but said localised flooding was likely anywhere in West Yorkshire and in the Skipton and Gargrave areas of North Yorkshire.

Roads in north Leeds were badly affected with poor visibility and flooding reducing traffic to a crawl.