By DPA
London : Britain braced for more flooding as heavy rain is forecast for central and southern England and south Wales Saturday night and Sunday, according to media reports.
Water companies across the country had been sending tankers to thousands of people whose water supplies were contaminated, while the Red Cross had been delivering food parcels, the reports said.
The Red Cross has so far raised some 500,000 pounds ($1 million) to help the victims, while Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the government was still considering whether it should apply for European Union emergency funding.
"We are currently looking at that. We have to make an assessment of exactly what the total cost is likely to be. We don't yet know that," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
As climate change was likely to cause more extreme weather in the future, Britain also needed to invest more in flood defences, Benn said.
"We are going to have to adapt to a different world. There is no doubt about that at all," Benn told the BBC.
The head of the British Environment Agency (EA), meanwhile, has warned that water bills in Britain were likely to rise as Britain had to improve the drainage in towns and cities and protect vital infrastructure.
"Utilities will have to pay for this protection and undoubtedly they will have to pass that on to their customers," EA head Baroness Barbara Young said.