Vehicles collided and scores of people had to be rescued from their homes, some airlifted by RNLI helicopter, as a small area of the picturesque Otter valley in east Devon was lashed with four inches of rain in the space of just two hours.

Between 1am and 3am, the little town of Ottery St Mary was deluged in ice and freezing water which flooded homes and tore up roads, thanks to an intense weather system estimated to be less than four miles across.

The police, coastguard and fire service were all called in to action after fierce electric storms lashed the area.

The weather which hit the town was “hugely localised,” said a Met Office spokesman, adding “it seemed to be centred on Ottery St Mary”.

“It is probably one of those occasions when we can call it a freak event,” the spokesman went on.

The drama is already being compared to the downpour which flooded the Cornish village of Boscastle in 2004.

Some residents may however be suspecting that supernatural agents were at work. The town is partially immortalised in author JK Rowling's chronicles of junior wizard Harry Potter, as the Weasley wizarding family live in a village named Ottery St Catchpole.

The emergency services have received more than 150 calls reporting flood problems and an evacuation centre was set up at the hospital in Ottery St Mary, where at one time more than 20 people were taking shelter.

Police said a pregnant woman involved in a road accident between Ottery and the nearby town of Honiton had to be transported by ambulance to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

Susanne Reed, from Devon Fire Control, said: “It has been absolute chaos, it started just after midnight when we were out rescuing people stuck in their cars in flood water.

“It got worse and worse and one crew got stuck in a six-foot hail drift."

Tony Fabry, 46, whose wife Sharon is the sub-post mistress in town, said that people in remote farm houses had to be airlifted to safety and the RNLI was helping to evacuate some homes. The post office sorting room was under six inches of water and flooding 12 inches deep was flowing down the road, said Mr Fabry.

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