Archive footage: Floods in the 1950s

BBC Rewind's archive footage shows what the human cost was during serious flooding 60 years ago.

On 16 August 1952, the holiday village of Lynmouth in north Devon was devastated by fatal flooding. Nine inches (22.9cm) of rain had fallen in 24 hours on Exmoor, just four miles (6.4km) away.

Ninety million tonnes of water swept down the narrow valley into Lynmouth, destroying whole buildings. Thirty-five people died in the flood.

In 2001, a BBC investigation confirmed that secret RAF "cloud-seeding" experiments were causing heavy rainfall.

Just a few months later on 31 January 1953, a high spring tide, low pressure and exceptionally strong northerly gales caused extensive flooding on the east coast of England.

Towns in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent were battered as sea water surged into the streets.

The surge cost 307 lives in English coastal areas. As well as those who had perished on land, more than 177 people were lost at sea. Many died in capsized fishing boats and more than 130 were killed when the Irish Channel ferry Princess Victoria fell victim to the storm.

In the Netherlands, the dead numbered more than 1,800.

At the time, the flood was deemed an aberration of nature and unlikely to happen more than once every 250 years.

In the aftermath of the flood the total spend on defences on the east coast in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex was £250m over 10 years.