Work has continued throughout the night to prevent the collapse of a dam wall holding backing water in Toddbrook Reservoir which is threatening to flood the town of Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire.

A multi-agency taskforce – involving the Environment Agency, Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service, the Canal River Trust and many others, has been working on a plan to address the damage to the dam wall.

The plan to secure the dam wall is to:

• Use 400 tonnes of aggregate to divert water from entering the reservoir and into other surrounding watercourses designed for this purpose.
• Use water pumps to remove water from the reservoir to relieve pressure on the dam wall.
• Once the above measures reduce the water to a level that is safe – work will then begin on the dam wall itself.

Early this morning an RAF Chinook helicopter was brought in to drop 400 tonnes of aggregate on the surrounding watercourses which feed into it to shore up the damaged dam.

Pumps from fire services across the country are being used to pump out 7,000 litres of water a minute from the 300-million-gallon reservoir. Ten specialist high-volume pumping fire appliances along with specially-trained fire and rescue flood advisors have been brought into the area from around the UK, utilising fire service national co-ordination arrangements.

Further evacuations of residents have taken place downstream of the Toddbrook Reservoir as work continues to be done to ensure the structural integrity of the reservoir wall.

All residents in the area of Whaley Bridge that is at highest risk of flooding, should the reservoir give way, have been contacted by police officers and asked to leave their properties.

"Very real danger posed to people should the wall collapse"

Deputy Chief Constable Rachel Swann who is chair of the Local Resilience Forum said:

“Over the course of the day we have been dealing with an unprecedented incident at the Toddbrook Reservoir in Whaley Bridge. As you will be aware, a wall of the reservoir has been badly damaged during recent heavy rain.

“Following an assessment by structural engineers the decision was taken to stop access to Whaley Bridge and evacuate parts of the village – along with further areas downstream.

“The response to this incident has come from far and wide. Emergency services from across Derbyshire, the region and across the country have provided support already and will continue to do so in the forthcoming hours and days.

“To move the substantial amount of aggregate into place – a Chinook helicopter will be operating in the area in the coming hours to allow precise placement and divert the flow of the water.

“With all that said, at this time the future of the dam wall remains in the balance and I would remind people of the very real danger posed to them should the wall collapse. I understand that being evacuated from your home is a very difficult decision and it is certainly not one that we make lightly.”

She added that while all the agencies are doing “everything humanly possible” to bring the incident to a conclusion, however, that timescale for when residents will be able to get back into their homes is currently unknown.