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'Don't come here': Swedish city of Gävle flooded after DOUBLE a month's worth of rain falls overnight

The Local Sweden
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'Don't come here': Swedish city of Gävle flooded after DOUBLE a month's worth of rain falls overnight
A residential area in Gävle covered in water on Wednesday. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

People in Gävle are being urged to stay inside after double that of one month’s worth of rain fell in just the space of a few hours.

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Just before 3am on Wednesday, fire and rescue services in the Gävle area sent out an official warning, urging people to stay at home due to heavy rain and flooding.

The warning was lifted later in the morning, but people were still told to be cautious after landslides were reported and roads caved in.

"Police are therefore urging residents of the Gävleborg region not to head out on the roads unless they have to. Police are also urging travellers not to come to Gävleborg," read a statement on the regional police authority's website on Wednesday.

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Several buildings and roads were flooded after 140 millimetres of rain came down in the east coast city between 8pm on Tuesday and 4am on Wednesday, weather agency SMHI told the TT newswire. Normally, around 70 millimetres fall over the whole month of August.

By 10am, SMHI said 161.6 millimetres of rain had come down, breaking the region's previous rain record of 125.8 millimetres.

Schools had been set to open in Gävle on Wednesday, but were closed and students were sent home due to the weather conditions. Preschools remained open with limited staffing.

No trains were running between Borlänge and Falun in the Dalarna region on Wednesday morning.

A flooded street in Gävle. Photo: Pernilla Wahlman/TT

The rain subsided by Wednesday afternoon, but class-one warnings (the least serious on a scale from one to three) for high river flows were in place for Gävleborg and Dalarna, as well as class-one warnings for heavy rain in Norrbotten and the Jämtland mountain regions.

A man on an electric scooter in Gävle. Photo: Pernilla Wahlman/TT

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