Climate change blamed for Cumbria flood devastation

Climate change has been blamed for the floods which have devastated parts of the UK following Storm Desmond.

Record-breaking amounts of rain fell in Cumbria - the worst-hit part of the country - where residents have been evacuated and tens of thousands of homes left without power.

Two people have died as a result of the extreme weather - one in Cumbria and another in the Republic of Ireland.

A spokesperson for the Met Office told ITV News Science Correspondent Alok Jha that there is a "very strong link" between the flooding and climate change.

Members of the armed forces help carry sandbags in an affected street. Credit: PA Wire

Environment Secretary Liz Truss was also among those to cite climate change as a cause for what she called the "unprecedented weather event".

Dame Julia Slingo, the chief scientist at the Met Office warned that "all the evidence" suggests climate change played a role in the floods.

She described the extreme weather conditions as "extraordinary".

She told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "Is it to do with climate change? There can't yet be a definitive answer but we know that all the evidence from fundamental physics and what we understand about our weather patterns, that there is potentially a role."