Cumbria police searching for a missing colleague swept away when a bridge collapsed in huge floods early this morning said today that they had found a body.

Pc Bill Barker, a 45-year-old road traffic officer, fell into the swollen river Derwent after the collapse of the Northside Bridge in Workington. The Army, coastguard and mountain rescue teams joined the RNLI and police in a search mission which lasted for eight hours before a man's body - as yet unidentified - was found a nearby beach.

Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Graham said: “I’m very sad to have to report we’ve recovered a body on the beach of an individual. That has not been identified. Our thoughts go out to Pc Barker and his family.

“Pc Barker had been serving in Cumbria Police for 25 years. I’ve heard nothing but good reports about him today. He was a family man with four children.”

Times Archive, 1953: 164 known dead in flood disaster

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Mr Graham said that Pc Barker and a colleague went on the bridge on foot in an attempt to help drivers trying to get across it. He said: “Unfortunately when they were on the bridge, the bridge gave way just due to the volume of water and Pc Barker went into the water and was swept away.”

He said that Pc Barker had been busy "saving lives" when he was swept away.

Captain Brian Ashbridge, of the RNLI, said the power of the torrents of floodwater had made the search operation extremely difficult. "There is a massive current coming down through the Derwent so conditions for the RNLI volunteers searching in the river basin have been very challenging. It’s absolutely horrendous. There is a huge amount of debris around in the water at the moment as well, which adds to the difficulties."

Cumbria Police reported a large number of missing person calls from across the county as fears grew that other people may have been swept away by rivers that have burst their banks. Police officers were continuing to rescue people trapped in their homes at lunchtime today.

Workington was among the towns and villages hit hardest by torrential rain that lashed parts of England, Wales and Scotland overnight. Seathwaite in Cumbria saw the heaviest rain fall anywhere in the UK since July 18, 1955.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, was talking to rescue workers in Cockermouth a small market town on the fringes of the Lake District that has been inundated with floodwater. He said that even defences built after the floods of 2005 to withstand a "one-in-100-years flood" could not cope with the volume of water.

"What we dealt with last night was probably more like one-in-a-thousand, so even the very best defences, if you have such quantities of rain in such a short space of time, can be over-topped," he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

While the flood waters were beginning to ease, he warned that more rain was forecast. "It is very important that people listen out for warnings, follow the advice that they are given, and look out for elderly neighbours or relatives," he said.