London flooding: Man awakes to find basement flat submerged under floodwater

Submerged: The flat was flooded with water 1ft deep

A Londoner today told how he awoke to find himself surrounded by a foot of water after torrential rain submerged his basement flat.

Abdul Choudhury, a consultant, had to wade through the flooding just to get out of bed and claimed today all his possessions had been destroyed.

The 27-year-old said he called Westminster Council, only to be told no one could come until 9am at the earliest, and that the Fire Brigade were too busy.

The porter at his block, in Carlisle Place, Victoria, called a private water pump firm which sucked the water out.

Flooded: The block called in a private water pump firm

Mr Choudhury said: "I literally woke up in bed and had to put my feet into water as I got out. It was about a foot deep. It submerged the whole flat.

"Everything has been destroyed, my laptop, passport, books and other documents because the floodwater brought in the muck with it too and we had stuff in storage boxes.

Abdul Choudhury: "Everything has been destroyed"

"It had all built up at an alleyway nearby I think and started coming down. Other people have been affected too, but I think only at basement level. I don't have insurance. It's a nightmare."

Mr Choudhury’s flooded flat was just one of the chaotic scenes around the capital this morning after a month’s rain fell in a matter of hours and wreaked havoc across the city.

Water: The whole flat was submerged

In Battersea, south London, a white Mercedes, a black BMW and a white van were all left abandoned in the road after trying to get through deep floodwater under a railway bridge on Queesntown Road, at the junction with Silverthorne Road.

It meant huge tailbacks with traffic gridlocked up to Clapham Common.

Drivers beeped horns with some heated exchanges between one motorist and a bus driver.

Flash flooding hits London - in pictures

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Alan Still, 36, who lives opposite the bridge, said: "We woke up and found two cars and a lorry abandoned. It's chaos and the traffic's mad and this road is always chocabloc anyway. I don't know what everyone's going to do. I'm running to work."

Kaleigh Somerton, 32, who also lives opposite, said: "It's rained non-stop. It's literally been raining since 11pm last night and we've never heard thunder like it. People tried to get through the water but it was too deep and their cars stalled.

"This area under the bridge always floods. It's bad, we have seen the fire brigade get the boat out here, that's when it's really bad."

At nearby Battersea Park station Southern trains in both directions were severely delayed with none arriving to take passengers to Victoria at one point for an hour, due to flooding at Wandsworth Common.

South West Trains from nearby Queenstown Road station were also severely delayed.

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