A 45-MINUTE rush hour deluge created a flooding nightmare across East Lancashire and left scores of people fighting to get home.

A spokesman for the Meteorological Office in Manchester said the storm had been caused by a very active cold front moving across the region. Council workers were out into the early hours of today helping people to sandbag their homes and fire crews dealt with hundreds of calls for help to clear flooded buildings.

Roads blocked by the downpour included Manchester Road, Burnley and the Padiham bypass.

All local trains travelling through Burnley were also subject to long delays as the lines between Burnley and Accrington were flooded.

Buses from Accrington were laid on at one stage for rail travellers going to Preston and Blackpool, although these were cancelled after engineers inspected the line and passed it as safe for trains to continue.

Fire crews in Burnley were called to more than a dozen incidents of flooding. Crews also attended a collapsed wall and submerged cars in Crawshawbooth and flooding in Bacup and Rawtenstall.

There was severe flooding in Ramsbottom where both Ramsbottom's United football ground and the cricket ground were submerged in water following the heavy rainfall.

Several pubs were also forced to close and the High Street was submerged under several inches of water.

Today's Ramsbottom Festival in Nuttall Park was also under threat after the funfair became flooded last night. Clean-up operations were in force today.

Junction 4 on the M65 between Blackburn and Darwen was under water for a time, causing traffic misery for homebound commuters.

Police put out an appeal for people to stay indoors after the storm and not to set out on journeys.

Flooding on the Blackburn to Bolton rail line disrupted journeys.

In Crawshawbooth there were also several homes and businesses severely affected by the weather.

One of the worst hit was shop owner Jack Slater, owner of Slater's Bowling Supplies in Burnley Road, Crawshawbooth.

Mr Slater said his shop had been flooded with more than a foot of water and mud. He said it would take until at least Monday to get his shop back to normal.

Mr Slater, whose shop sells bowling equipment and fishing rods, said: "I was up until 3am on Saturday morning sweeping out all the water and removing damaged stock and now its a case of cleaning up all the mud which has been left behind now the water has drained away.

"We had floods a couple of years ago but this time round its definitely been worse."

Burnley fire station officer Paul Hardy said the crews had been kept extremely busy through the night but had coped with all the emergency calls.

A Burnley police spokesman said: "We had reports of some flooded cellars and several roads were affected, but thankfully it was not as bad as elsewhere."

Emergency crews said Pendle had escaped relatively unscathed compared with other areas of East Lancashire.

A police spokesman said the ford on Ridehouse Lane, near Nelson, was blocked after flooding but that few other problems had been reported.

Fire crews said both Nelson and Colne had appeared to have avoided any major problems.

Hundreds of homes were flooded in Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley, and police closed more than a dozen major routes to traffic.

At one time the emergency services were receiving so many calls for help the 999 system failed.