37 rescued from stricken vessels in storm

Rescuers braved terrifying storms to airlift 37 people to safety after two vessels ran aground off the British coast in horrendous conditions today.

And on land, high winds and snow blizzards caused havoc on roads in parts of Scotland and northern England.

One lifeboatman thought the Riverdance ferry would sink when he saw it listing violently in huge swells off the Lancashire coast last night.

But helicopter crews successfully winched all 23 crew and passengers off the vessel, which is now stranded about 400 yards offshore north of Blackpool.

A salvage master and 10 divers were today en route from Rotterdam to Lancashire to begin the task of refloating the stricken ship.

The drama unfolded after a huge wave smashed into the Riverdance as it crossed the Irish Sea last night, shifting the ship's cargo and leaving it listing at a 60-degree angle.

Lifeboats and helicopters from the RAF, Royal Navy and Irish Coastguard battled 20ft waves and 60mph winds to reach the vessel.

All four passengers - a married couple and their teenage son, and a lorry driver - and 10 of the crew members were removed in the early hours of the morning.

The British captain decided to evacuate the nine people remaining on board when the ferry ran aground at Cleveleys, near Blackpool, at about 5am.

The Riverdance was carrying 50 lorries from Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland to the port of Heysham in Lancashire when it ran into trouble.

Fleetwood lifeboat coxswain Paul Ashworth, 51, and his crew of five volunteers were scrambled to assist the ferry last night.

He described the conditions as "the worst I have seen in 10 years", with 13-16ft (4-5m) swells breaking on the lifeboat out of the pitch dark.

"I have never seen anything like it. It was listing at 45 degrees. How all the cargo was still attached I just don't know," he said.

"When you first saw it in deeper water, I would've thought sinking would be inevitable.

"You don't normally recover from a list like that. If water had got in I think it would've gone down."

The Bahamas-registered Riverdance still has 100 tonnes of heavy oil on board for its main engines and 50 tonnes of lighter gas oil, similar to diesel, for manoeuvres.

The Coastguard is now monitoring the 30-year-old vessel for spills.

In a separate incident, 14 Spanish seamen were airlifted to safety when their British-registered trawler ran aground in force-nine gales.

The Spinning Dale was pushed into rocks and swamped by water off St Kilda in Scotland's Western Isles early this morning.

The crew, two of them suffering from mild hypothermia, were flown to Stornoway for medical treatment.

Storms also caused problems on land today, with the Met Office issuing severe weather warnings for all of the UK apart from south-east England.

In Scotland the weather is thought to have resulted in two firefighters being injured when a blazing garage in Lanarkshire collapsed on them today.

Heavy snow fell overnight in the Highlands, causing several lorries to get stuck in drifts on the A9, near Inverness.

The Forth Road Bridge, the Skye Bridge and the Erskine Bridge were all closed to high-sided vehicles, and several roads around Aberdeenshire were shut due to heavy snow.

About 300 households lost power, mainly around Dumfries, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, Scottish Power said.

In North Yorkshire, strong winds created dangerous travelling conditions for drivers during the night.

A lorry overturned on the A1 northbound carriageway near Knaresborough just after midnight.

Motoring agencies warned drivers to plan for their journeys carefully before leaving home, while council gritters were on high alert to keep the roads clear of ice.

Meanwhile, weather statistics revealed that this January was the wettest since 1995 - with only seven Januarys wetter in the past 100 years.