Anyone who's been watching the news today will have seen the reports of terrible flooding in Yorkshire - and Sheffield has been badly hit.

What originally seemed like a mere repeat of the flooding 10 days ago has turned into a fully-fledged natural disaster. Initially it seemed the flooding would be a minor irritation as rivers burst their banks and caused several roads to be closed, leading to gridlock in the city centre and the Meadowhall area.

But as flood waters started alarmingly to take over the city's streets, many people abandoned their cars and headed for safety - a good move, as this picture suggests.

Defensive walls along the Lower Don are reported to have collapsed, and many of the city's bridges have been completely swamped. Persistent rumour has it that the ancient Lady's Bridge - which survived the 1864 Great Sheffield Flood - may have collapsed. We shall have to see in the morning what the damage is.

Hundreds of people are being evacuated from premises in the Brightside Lane area - including the city's main Royal Mail sorting office.

And two people - a 13-year-old boy and a 68-year-old man - sadly died after being swept away by flood waters.

A resident at Millsands took these dramatic pictures of the flooding, and people being winched to safety by a Sea King rescue helicopter:



A massive praise for the folks at Sheffield Forum who have set up a special forum and information service for people affected by the flooding.

And for once, I'm going to give the thumbs up to Sky News (shock horror) - they were covering the situation in Sheffield while BBC News 24 were still telling us about rain delays at Wimbledon. Grr.