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HENLEY-ON-THAMES, England : More rains were forecast on Thursday for flood-hit areas in Britain, as two people died in a flood-related incident in Gloucestershire.
The county's fire service said two men lost their lives as they tried to pump out water from a flooded rugby club cellar. Officers believe the pair may have been overcome by fumes as they used a petrol-powered pump because they had no electricity.
Meanwhile, meteorologists said the three months from May to July were the wettest in England and Wales since records began in 1766.
The heavy rains came in two waves, one on June 24 and 25, that flooded much of northern and central England, killing four people, and another on July 20 that submerged large swathes of western and south-central England.
The second wave produced the worst flooding in 60 years, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without tap water, cutting electricity to tens of thousands of homes, and spreading chaos on both roads and railways.
The figures released by the weather forecasting agency, the Met Office, showed that 387.6 millimetres of rain has fallen across England and Wales, the most since records were first kept in 1766.
Even with the month not yet over, the total rainfall amount is already more than twice the May-to-June average, which is 186.3 millimetres.
And although the Environment Agency said levels along most of the Severn and Thames Rivers had peaked, meteorologists forecast more rain and health officials worried about the threat posed by sewage-tainted floodwaters.
The worst of the day's rain is due to fall in parts of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset, which is well south of the flood zones.
But flood-hit communities in Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire were also threatened with heavy rains, with some parts of the southern Cotswolds facing up to 20 millimetres, Met Office forecaster Nigel Bolton said.
Around 140,000 homes remained without tap water in the flood-ravaged western county of Gloucestershire as a utility firm tried to repair a treatment plant crippled by the overflowing River Severn at the weekend.
People in the area were receiving water rations from more than 1,000 mobile water tanks deployed across Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, but many complain they are not being filled quickly enough and often empty.
Gloucestershire Police warned there had been incidents of "selfishness", where people were draining the tanks or reselling water at inflated prices.
Professor Ian Cluckie, chairman of the government-backed Flood Risk Management Research Consortium, warned that the water "will become contaminated with raw sewage which means that there will still be E coli in there."
Cluckie, interviewed by The Daily Mail, added that it could lead to diseases like cholera or dysentery.
Floodwaters along most of the Severn receded in central and western England.
Water levels have also reached their highest point for most locations along the Thames, and are either steady or starting to fall slowly, the Environment Agency said.
Three severe flood warnings remained on the River Thames at Oxford and Abingdon, and the River Ock from Charney Bassett to Abingdon.
The Environment Agency said people who live in Reading, Purley and Henley should see levels start do drop throughout Thursday after having watched them rise towards their homes.
Skies were cloudy in Henley, with the swollen and fast flowing river lapping the terraces of riverside pubs, even if it has not spilled onto roads.
The capital London, which also lies on the Thames near the estuary, is not under threat. - AFP/de
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