Canoeist dies as melting snow and heavy rain bring floods George Reeder, 63, initially thought a dog had fallen in but was horrified to see the pushchair upturned in the water in Watchet, Somerset. He dived in and pulled the buggy to the wall before a member of the public helped to attach a rope and haul it to dry land. The baby, who spent around five minutes in the freezing water, was revived by a passerby who adminstered CPR, before being taken to hospital, where he is now thought to be out of intensive care. A lifeboat crew rescued a mother and her two-year-old child from the River Thames at Isleworth, west London. They were said to be very cold but otherwise unhurt. A woman had to abandon her car after it became engulfed by flood water on the A34 at Meaford in Staffordshire early this morning. She had managed to scramble to safety by the time rescue crews arrived and was in shock but otherwise uninjured, police said. Staffordshire Fire Service said the road was 4ft deep in water in places, and crews spent several hours pumping it dry on the advice of the Environment Agency. Firefighters also rescued a motorist who became stuck after flash flooding hit a road in Hawes, North Yorkshire Shropshire Fire and Rescue was called out to rescue sheep trapped by floodwater near Oswestry this morning. Mountain rescue teams were also out in force. A climber, named by police as Ben St Joseph, 22, from Essex, fell 300ft to his death on Ben Nevis, Britain's highest peak, yesterday morning, and a woman was flown to hospital by an RAF rescue helicopter after falling about 30ft while climbing in Snowdonia yesterday. Flooding in the village of Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire. A fortnight of snow and ice abruptly gave way to downpours and milder temperatures yesterday, leading to flooding that caused fresh disruption on the roads and railways. Heavy rain came down overnight and into the morning, with more than an inch falling in parts of Wales, central and south-west England, and the rest of Britain experiencing at least half an inch. The Met Office issued a yellow rain warning for much of the country, warning that people should be aware that flooding could cause disruption, in particular to travel. Heavy downpours are expected to return tomorrow, with as much as an inch of rain falling on high ground, bringing a further risk of flooding as surface water and river levels build up ahead of an unsettled week. The River Derwent rising. The latest warnings of flooding came 60 years after one of Britain's worst natural disasters. The 1953 east coast floods, which began on the night of January 31, affected more than 1,000 miles of coast from Shetland to Kent, killing 307 people and leading to the evacuation of 30,000 homes They were caused by a combination of a high spring tide, deep atmospheric low pressure which raised sea levels and exceptionably strong northerly gales which led to a surge of sea water over coastal defences. David Rooke, the Environment Agency's director of flood and coastal risk management, said the anniversary would serve as a reminder of the devastation floods can cause to lives. He said: "Since 1953 huge improvements have been made in flood forecasting and prevention. But 1.3 million people are at risk of coastal flooding in England and Wales, and this is set to increase with a changing climate and rising sea levels. The extra protection and reassurance flood defences give to many communities should not be under-estimated but nor should the reality that tidal surges along the coast still happen regularly.