TORRENTIAL rain and flash floods continued to cause chaos across the region yesterday.

The heavy downpours throughout the day left hundreds of homes flooded and forced the emergency services to close roads.

County Durham took the brunt of the flooding, with Carville, near Durham, practically closed off as fire and rescue services attended dozens of incidents.

A spokesman for Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue said: "I can only describe it as chaos. It has been non-stop because of the flooding, both on the roads and people's homes.

"Carville has been hit particularly badly but, to be honest, the whole of the county has been flooded."

The landlady of the Grange Hotel, in Carville, said that by 6pm the ground floor of the pub was under six inches of water.

Elsie Shutt, who has run the pub for two years, said: "It has been absolutely unbelievable, I've never seen anything like it in my life.

"Some of the people have come in and said they have never seen it this bad for 40 years."

Cleveland and the east coast was also badly hit, with many incidents of flooding in Marske, particularly on Raleigh Road, Ryehill Road and Fell Briggs Road.

In Darlington, many roads looked more like rivers. Geoff Freeman, of Whitwell Road, said: "It's been mad, the rain has been so heavy, the road has been like a paddling pool and our home was almost flooded."

There were also some minor incidents of flooding in North Yorkshire, and Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue was called out to a number of incidents south of the River Tyne.