Storm Desmond: UK severe flooding and extreme weather - live blog

• David Cameron calls emergency Cobra meeting
• More than 100 severe flood warnings and 68 alerts
• 60,000 homes in north-west England left without power
• 200mm of rain fell in Britain's wettest area in Cumbria
  

5.43pm GMT

Part of street has been torn away by swollen river, bridges have collapsed and almost 60,000 people in the North have been left without power.

Severe weather warning for rain has been issued. Stay #WeatherAware at https://t.co/LohpJi9n9A pic.twitter.com/I6ZpcVAmy1

5.20pm GMT

My colleague Helen Pidd, the Guardian's north of England editor, sent this dispatch from Lancaster:

Army trucks have been stationed at a hospital in Lancaster to act as ambulances after flooding cut the city off from the power grid and blocked all but one access route.

The Royal Lancaster infirmary (RLI) is running on generator power after an electricity substation flooded, cutting electricity to 55,000 homes and businesses in Lancaster, Morecambe, Carnforth and the surrounding areas.

One fella was cooking scrambled eggs on a camping stove outside his home in Lancaster; long queues for pay phones pic.twitter.com/LEi4UEsQCv

A crowd had gathered outside Sainsbury's by the river Lune where staff were handing out free baps and loaves of bread. James Melody, 20, and his girlfriend Esme Moxley, also 20, were happy to have got their hands on one brown loaf. "It's so weird to see people using phoneboxes. I wouldn't know how," said Melody.

Sainsbury's in Lancaster was giving out free loaves of bread today, as the city told no electricity before Tuesday pic.twitter.com/KYZQaqOStG

I think the only time I've used one was when I was little, to do prank phone calls," said Moxley, who was wondering how she would get back to her home in Leeds, with no trains running north of Preston.

Elsewhere, the blitz spirit reigned. Outside his house on Greaves Road, teacher Piers Napper was cooking scrambled eggs on a camping stove. "I rescued it from the garage in the dark this morning," he said. "We're hoping the gas will last until we get power back."