Flooded Ireland Braced For More

Continued bad weather has caused disruption across the Republic of Ireland with overnight rain causing flooding in many areas.

Homes and businesses at Mallow in Co Cork have sustained extensive damage likely to cost many millions of euro due to flooding by the River Blackwater.

A flood alert was issued by Cork County Council to residents and business people on Bridge Street in the town last night and staff worked throughout the night distributing sand bags.

However, a number of streets ended up under several feet of water, with Park Road under around 1m of water.

It is thought the flooding has not yet peaked, and homes in the Spa area of the town are under threat and a number of streets in Fermoy, which is downstream of Mallow, are expected to flood later this afternoon.

Council engineers can predict that flooding will occur by measuring the levels of the River Blackwater further upstream at Kanturk and Millstreet.

Elsewhere, Co Wicklow is also badly affected, with the Mill Road in Greystones impassable because of flooding. One lane of the N11 northbound is also blocked at Kilpedder due to a mudslide.

There are also reports of flooding in Carlow, Waterford, Kilkenny, Offaly and Dublin.

In Carlow, Centaur St is impassable due to flooding. In Kilkenny, the Rathduff Old Town Road between Jerpoint and Stonyford is impassable and the main Waterford to Tramore Rd is flooded.

Meanwhile, 8,500 Eircom customers remain without a phone service after the recent stormy weather.

Areas still without phone lines late on Thursday afternoon included the northwest, southwest, Connacht and the Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary regions.

Eircom crews continue to work to restore lines but it will be middle of next week before full service restored.

However, the ESB says the majority of the 20,000 households in the northwest left in the dark yesterday because of bad weather have had power restored.

(BMcC)