this is bbc news, i'm martine croxall. the headlines at 3: south wales police declare flooding caused by storm dennis a major incident. a man has been found dead after falling into a river in south wales. heavy rain and strong winds continue to lash large parts of the uk. as you can see behind, the emergency services are doing an incredible job trying to get people out of their homes, homes that have been ruined by water gushing through, destroying all their possessions. hundreds of flood alerts are in place across the uk including a number of red warnings, meaning there's a danger to life. after love island presenter caroline flack took her own life, her successor on the programme, laura whitmore made an emotional tribute on her radio show. at age 40, caroline flack made the decision to take her own life

and i want to talk about it. i'm going to talk about her and give her the respect that she deserves, and that she didn't always get. american citizens quarantined on a cruise ship injapan are to be flown home, after a jump in the number of new cases of coronavirus on board. and in half an hour here on bbc news, you can see the best of the week's exclusive interviews and reports from the victoria derbyshire programme. storm dennis has lashed parts of the uk with more than a month's worth of rain in 48 hours, leading to flooding, landslides and evacuations. in the past few minutes, police in wales say a man has been found dead in the swansea valley, afterfalling into the river tawe.

594 flood warnings and alert were in place in england today — an all time record. the met office said that winds of more than 80mph were recorded across parts of the country, whilst heavy rainfall led to rivers bursting their banks. south wales has been particularly affected — a red warning this morning told people there could be a risk to life. efforts are under way to rescue people in powys, after water rushed into their homes. and there are raging waters in lla nfoist near abergavenny. in hay—on—wye you can see these images of vehicles being washed away in fast—moving flood waters. and here's the scene outside someone‘s window in nantgarw, you can see the tops of the cars just visible above the water, as people's homes and properties are flooded. helena wilkinson has this report. in south wales this lunchtime, a major incident has been declared.

emergency crews are dealing with landslides like this, and widespread flooding. this is what residents in the village of nantgarw near cardiff woke to this morning. a road now looking more like a river, the sheer volume of water left cars submerged. emergency services had to rescue people as the water levels rose, including this elderly lady. and this is a high street in pontypridd in south wales. not everyone heeded the don't drive through flood water advice. i workjust down on the corner, and i had to leave at about eight o'clock last night because of the floods, so to come down this morning and see it like this is a shock. others have been left stranded. that is what one family woke up to in crickhowell while on holiday. i can see coming down the street now where there is an inflatable boat,

so fingers crossed we won't be here too much longer. so far in the calder valley in west yorkshire, it has not been as bad as people feared. it has not really gone up overnight. it's all right at the moment. no panic as of yet, but keep an eye on it. in glasgow, the river clyde was battered by torrential rain. scotland has borne the brunt of the storm. three severe flood warnings remain in place for the borders. in carlisle, a lucky escape. a couple had to be rescued after their car was swept from the road by an overflowing river, leaving their vehicle wedged against this gate. this storm is far from over. communities continue to battle against appalling weather conditions. more devastation for those already bearing the brunt may be yet to come. helen wilkinson, bbc news. fiona trott is in york where water levels have already risen in the city. life continues as

normal here in york. you can see clifford's tower behind me, many visitors here in the city centre at a weekend. you can see them going up to clifford's tower, one of the main tourist attractions and yet here we are, not far away in the middle of the city centre in a boat on a footpath and that is because there has been flooding here already, preparations being made for more rain, possible flooding later in the next 2a, 48 hrs. not as bad as previous levels though in 2015, expected to rise by about 4.8 metres, the environment agency says, and yet volunteers are on standbyjust in case. let me introduce you to one of them, david wilson, you are from york rescue. tell me what you're going to be going to do over the next 24, 48 hours. we have a team on standby to respond to any flooding incidents that happen in york or the york area. and what sort of things do you do when you get a call from the fire and rescue service? basically, you have equipment like this, boats and other equipment

to get to places they can't reach? yes, we are on a network of teams that do it. we can get in to evacuate peoples buildings, we are qualified to evacuate people from cars from floodwater or even just do the humanitarian, make sure people are ok if they are surrounded by water. and they can't get out of their homes. and this is the thing, it is not as bad as previous times. in 2015, you were working in the floods then, what you think of the flood levels at the moment? this is classed as normal for york. it is nothing out of the ordinary, this happens a couple of times a year. the strange thing is what is going to happen in the next 24 hours. you are all volunteers, how many of you are on standby to go out at a moment's notice? 0n the team we have 26 operational volunteers that we can call in with different skill sets, we have flood rescue teams, medics, they all come in depending on what thejob is. thank you very much for speaking to us here in york city centre this afternoon.

the latest information we have from the environment agency is that there are 33 flood warnings in place in the north yorkshire area which means immediate action is necessary and four flood warnings in place for york city centre. the town of hawick has been hit by severe flooding as storm dennis passed across scotland. a number of homes were evacuated and rest centres were set up for displaced residents. 0ur reporter alexandra mackenzie is there. three rivers here in the borders reached record levels last night causing severe flooding and one of the areas that has been badly affected is hawick. the river here behind me, the levels have gone down but it is still very fast flowing and what we did notice as we were driving in to hawick is that a lot of the low level fields were either saturated or completely flooded because hawick was quite badly affected by storm

ciara last week and now with storm dennis this week so there has just been no time for the water to dry so everything is completely saturated. now, 20 miles further south in newcastleton, that village was also badly affected at last night. people had to be evacuated from their homes and there was flooding to property and businesses there. we do believe that the levels, there are not likely to be any more floods here today. the levels are likely to go down. the council emergency... the wind has gone down a little which is great. the council emergency bunker has been up and running for the last couple of days. yesterday, they were involved in getting up sandbags and putting up flood

defences and now they will be helping with the clear up and helping those who have been affected by the flooding. 0ur weather presenter, phil avery is here. where do we stand with these warnings? the red has gone tha nkfully warnings? the red has gone thankfully which was the issue down in south wales this morning. it is fairly unusual. way back into march in 2018 since we last had a read of any description and that was when there was a lot of snow around. for there was a lot of snow around. for the last red with regard to rainfall we are back to boxing day 2015 so that puts in some sort of context where we have been with this particular feature. thankfully now, we are but with one weather warning. since we went through 3pm, this amber weather warning for the rainfall down into the south—east of england will last until 6pm this evening because it is going to be that long before we get the wretched rain away. i'm showing you this

picture from one of our weather watchers because that happens to be the place we have got real issues with regards to the river team. there were four severe flood warnings from the environment agency for this particular river in worcestershire and it mightjust ci’oss worcestershire and it mightjust cross the border into herefordshire and even though the rain is beginning to ease it is going to ta ke beginning to ease it is going to take a beginning to ease it is going to takea time beginning to ease it is going to take a time towards 7pm before we get rid of all the rain as we had to keep separate in our minds, or locate the weather warnings are dissipating but the flood situation obviously takes a good deal longer to respond. we may turn off the taps from the skies from persistent rain into squally showers which wouldn't be very welcome anyway but this severe flood situation and the myriad of other flood warnings and alerts that the environment agency have been issuing and it is a record number, they will be hanging around

for a good while yet. there is a lag, isn't there? very much so. some rivers you get 100 millilitres of rain and it vanishes and others it doesn't. you mentioned squally winds, that is going to be a concern tonight in some places? very much so. tonight in some places? very much so. we have all of this rain are yet to declare away from the south eastern quarter. this is the situation over the past few hours, there is that great raft of showers i was talking about which has been very much the weather situation across scotland and northern ireland today but i think once we get through the course of this evening, thatis through the course of this evening, that is the sort of gust situation for the rest of this afternoon. that hasn't been such an issue. cast our minds back, last weekend we were talking about gust of winds of 80 or mighty dili macro 90 mph so similar storms but into the small hours of tomorrow morning, that is the centre

of storm dennis, we have been on the periphery of the action and what periphery of the action and what periphery it has been but we're looking at gusts of winds of 60, 70, 75 must power across a good part of scotla nd 75 must power across a good part of scotland and may be getting into the far north of england so the lorry drivers are getting onto the m74 and further north in the central belt, thatis further north in the central belt, that is going to be really tricky conditions. we haven't majored on the wins because the floods have been such an issue but tonight i would be very much concerned about anyone scooting their way across the high ground and the exposed roots of scotland. when is it going to quieten down and we will be free of this weather system? this moves to the norwegian coast in the next 24 hours or so but what people will notice on monday and tuesday is that we are still going to have a very blustery sort of mixture of sunny spells and showers, no more the persistent rain but i don't want to underestimate the impact of some of the showers, quite squally and

gusty, almost like a type of spring time scenario we are going into. rather than the rain hour after hour. we won't really lose the wind isa hour. we won't really lose the wind is a feature of the weather until about wednesday. there is not another storm with a name beginning with e that will batter us on its way is there? there will be eventually but i don't see anything just yet. after quite a spell in the middle of the week, i think we go into a very windy and blustery regime again but as yet not named. thank you very much. and for the latest information on storm dennis in your area, you can find out more, on your local bbc 0nline pages, or, tune in, to your local radio station. further tributes have been paid to caroline flack, the tv presenter, who was found dead at her home yesterday. herfamily‘s lawyer said she had taken her own life. laura whitmore, who succeeded caroline as presenter of love island, criticised newspapers and socia media users

over their treatment of her friend. caroline flack had been due to stand trial next month for assaulting her boyfriend, a charge she denied. angus crawford reports. it's the return of the flack! love island, x factor, i'm a celebrity — caroline flack, a life which appeared successful and glamorous. let's talk love. until december last year, when she was arrested and charged with assaulting her boyfriend. yesterday, her family confirmed she had taken her own life. today, friend and fellow presenter laura whitmore, who replaces her on love island, could not hide her grief and anger. anyone who knew caroline knew she was vivacious, loving, and had a passion for life. to the press, the newspapers who create click bait, who demonise and tear down success, we've had enough. you don't have to tear down someone

to feel good about yourself. there have been many other tributes from friends, fans and fellow celebrities. a media scrum at her first court appearance, distressing allegations she denied, a trial date in march and bail conditions banning any contact with her boyfriend, lewis burton. he denied being a victim and did not want the prosecution to go ahead. today, he posted this message. "my heart is broken", and, "we had something so special". he also appeared to criticise the way the case was handled, saying, "i was not allowed to be there this time. i kept asking and asking". questions, too, from her management, who labelled it a "show trial". the crown prosecution service says it won't comment. weeks before her death, she wrote of the weight of media intrusion, saying...

as angus crawford mentioned in his report, caroline flack‘s management team have criticised the crown prosecution service for refusing to drop charges that she assaulted her boyfriend, even though he didn't support their case. earlier i spoke to our home affairs correspondent june kelly about the issues involved. the crown prosecution service, although they won't discuss this case, they will say that to bring any prosecution, it has to meet two benchmarks. first of all, there has to be a realistic prospect of conviction so they can'tjust take a case to court because they think someone should be prosecuted, they have to think there could be a chance that the person who was in court and in the dock could be convicted and the other benchmark is that the case has to be in the public interest. in terms of caroline flack‘s mental state, if this case had got to court,

her lawyers would have been able to put evidence before the court about her mental state and that would have been considered by the magistrate who was dealing with the case because it was going to be a magistrate who dealt with this case, it wasn't deemed serious enough that it had to go to crown court. her boyfriend, lewis burton, has said, i didn't want this case to proceed. what bearing does that have? that really doesn't have any bearing at all because we have seen in a number of domestic abuse allegations where cases have got to court where the alleged victim has withdrawn consent to the prosecution and certainly there has been a big focus, a big push on police and prosecutors in recent years to bring more domestic abuse cases to court and take them more seriously and when they examine the behaviour of the alleged complainant to look and see, is there a reason that person doesn't want to

get the case to court? we don't know what the situation was. that he has said that, really, that can't bear down on prosecutors' decision. they must have felt that there was enough evidence for this case to be tested in court. how mindful are prosecutors in the crown prosecution service of the impact on the mental health of people who find themselves in the system, particularly defendants? i think, as i say the cps aren't making a particular comment on this particular case but last autumn the director of public prosecutions, max hill, said, iam not suggesting we should stop prosecuting people with mental health conditions or disorders but what we need to do is balance our approach and ensure that those with mental health conditions, and i'm including victims and witnesses in this, are treated fairly and proportionately. so that goes back to the point that if caroline flack had been in court, all of her mental health issues should have been looked at and dealt with and there should have been reports but clearly, there is massive anger amongst those who loved her about what has happened.

and if you've been affected by any of the issues raised, information and support is available from bbc action line, and there's the number for you. the headlines on bbc news: south wales police have declared flooding caused by storm dennis a major incident. a man has been found dead afterfalling into a river there. heavy rain and strong winds continue to lash large parts of the uk. as tributes continue to pour in for the love island presenter, caroline flack, her management have criticised the crown prosecution service for refusing to drop charges that she assaulted her boyfriend. american citizens quarantined on a cruise ship injapan are to be flown home, after a jump in the number of new cases of coronavirus on board. and in sport: england are chasing a huge 223 to win the third and deciding t20 international against south africa in centurion.

england are 106—2 off 10 overs. and celtic have extended their lead at the top of the scottish premiership to 13 points — for a few hours at least. they've beaten aberdeen 2—1. rangers have just kicked off against livingston. and it is 2—2 between aston villa and spurs in the premier eague. heung son min scoring after having his penalty saved. but in the last few minutes villa equalised through bjorn engels. villa are just above the relegation zone while spurs would move up to fifth place with a win. i'll be back with more on those stories later. the united states sent two planes to japan to bring home its citizens, quarantined on a cruise liner in the port of yokohama for the past 11 days. we can show you some pictures of the vessel and the vehicles which are waiting on the quayside to bring those people off the ship. there are now 355 cases

of coronavirus on the ship — making it the biggest cluster outside china. we understand there are reports that the evacuation of us passengers from the evacuation of us passengers from the diamond princess has now got under way. the foreign office here are saying they are working round the clock to ensure the welfare of britons on board. no plans at the moment to bring them home in the way that the us state authorities have decided to do. china has announced a drop in new cases from the coronavirus outbreak for a third consecutive day. new cases spiked earlier in the week after a change in the way they were counted but have been falling ever since. in total more than 68,000 people have been infected in china with the death toll standing at 1,665. 0utside china there have been more than 500 cases in nearly 30 countries. so where are we with the overall picture of the coronavirus spread? paul hunter is a professor of medicine at the university of east anglia. hejoins me from cheshire.

thank you forjoining us. good to have you here. what should we make of this trend that is being reported by the chinese? i think it goes back more thanjust by the chinese? i think it goes back more than just the last three days actually. it is getting on for about two weeks now, confirmed cases have been dropping so yesterday we had about a third of the number of cases ina single about a third of the number of cases in a single day as we had almost two weeks ago. that has been slightly confused by the way that clinically confirmed cases are being introduced into the numbers now but even so there seems to be a continued decline. having said that, that does not mean that we can relax because we are still seeing well over 1000 new cases a day in wuhan and our

experience of previous outbreaks of sars was that the initial wave of sars was that the initial wave of sars 20 years ago seems to be on the way out after about two months but then an even bigger wave followed it as people after people relaxed. so good news at the moment but not something that we can take too much pleasure in at this stage. what is your view of the control measures that china has introduced and the effectiveness that they have probably had? i think they have probably had? i think they have probably done as much as anybody could do. i cannot believe there is another country on the planet that could have effectively quarantined such a large city and multiple cities. i just could such a large city and multiple cities. ijust could not imagine that actually working in the uk. what else could they do at this

stage? it is very difficult. certainly there are now stories circulating about earlier on in december when maybe things could have been directionally been a lot more effective early on but are certainly in the last months or six weeks i think they have done as much as they could do really. how wide has it been to have kept these passengers on the cruise ship in yokohama, particularly as now some of them if they are american citizens are going to be brought up? ican citizens are going to be brought up? i can remember when this came out and first started and the suggestion of keeping the people on the ship seemed actually quite a good thing because at least they won't then a risk to people in other countries. what has happened since then is that the disease undoubtably has continued to spread amongst people

on the ship whilst quarantine was being enforced and so the risk of enquiring the infection is higher than we would have liked. it is a lwa ys than we would have liked. it is always balancing like this, when you remove people from that sort of environment you do run the risk of spreading the infection more widely, globally, and that is itself also damaging and you have to balance the risks of the wider community to the risks of the wider community to the risk of the individuals on board. it would not have been an easy decision and would have taken time and it is not an easy decision to take now of whether it is better to repatriate people on board. good to speak to you again. i'm sure we will talk again another day. thank you very much.

so just to sojust to remind so just to remind you this is the boat where the passengers are being held in quarantine but as you can see on screen, the evacuation of us passengers by the american authorities is now under way. the transport secretary grant shapps has denied holding any talks with china about building the hs2 high speed rail line. it's reported the china railway construction corporation wrote to hs2 limited last month, saying it could complete the project faster and more cheaply than current plans. mr shapps was speaking on the andrew marr show earlier: i think what's happened is they have clearly had a letter sent to hs2 limited. there has been no conversation with me as a minister, as the secretary of state, or not. but i have to say, by the way, i kind of really want to get this thing built faster, if it's possible.

so we would be fools not to have a conversation, but i think, you know, five years, when you look at what is required and the contracts that need to be laid and so on and so forth, it is an enormous project. you are not going to build it in five years. thousands of australians are attending a ten—hour fundraising concert for those affected by the recent bushfires. alice cooper and queenjoined local stars like 5 seconds of summer and tina arena in sydney. the australian government has come in for harsh criticism for its response to the disaster. the comedian, celeste barber, opened the event. the volunteers across this entire country, they are the ones who have saved us. they are the ones who actively go out and help. they are the ones... cheering.

they are the ones that cancel holidays to stay here and look after us. time for a look at the weather. and the rain warnings are coming to an end as the rain tends to move through but we still have lots of flood warnings across the uk, record numbers today and there is still severe flooding in places. the main rain band is moving away from the south—east. showers can packing in, they are going to be quite heavy as well and storm dennis, the centre of storm dennis is getting closer to northern scotland overnight so may get a strengthening of the wind across here as well. certainly lots of showers keep going overnight, some of them heavy and it is still going to be windy for most of us as well but cooler than it has been of late for england and wales. tomorrow is going to be a day of sunshine and blustery showers. some of the

showers heavy, potentially thundery, isa showers heavy, potentially thundery, is a wetter weather putting eastwards a cross is a wetter weather putting eastwards across england and wales, more frequent showers continuing in scotla nd more frequent showers continuing in scotland and northern ireland. decent solid temperatures, perhaps as high as nine or 10 degrees, a windy day but not as windy as it has been. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines... south wales police have

declared flooding caused by storm dennis a major incident. a man has been found dead, afterfalling into a river there. heavy rain and strong winds continue to lash large parts of the uk. hundreds of flood alerts are in place across the country, including a number of red warnings, meaning there's a danger to life. as tributes continue to pour in for the love island presenter, caroline flack, her management have criticised the crown prosecution service for refusing to drop charges that she assaulted her boyfriend. the evacuation of american citizens quarantined on a cruise ship injapan, has begun. they're to be flown home after a jump in the number of new cases of coronavirus on board. and now on bbc news victoria derbyshire takes a look at some of the highlights from her programme this week.