Local farmers in the area were called upon to help tow cars from the flooded field in Portmerion, Gwynedd, where the No 6 Festival was taking place.

According to Olwyn Ford, who owns some of the land used for the car park, the water was 3in deep.

Though her land was not the part that flooded, she told the Irish Farmers Journal: “Everyone knew there would be flooding that weekend. Every local saw the car park on Saturday and wondered what would happen. Festival organisers should have known. I drove past it and saw it filling.”

Two days before the festival there was a high tide and as a result underlying water. A lot of rain had been forecast for Saturday also.

Topography of the area

Ms Ford explained the topography of the land, saying: “It is the biggest natural fjord outside Norway [in Europe]. It is all at sea level. In the early 1800s a wall was built with gates to stop the sea from entering and the river from exiting. In normal circumstances, the sea would come right up to the farm and flood about 50 or 60 acres of the land.”

The gate is opened and closed with the tide and, according to Ms Ford, one of the gates broke on St Stephen’s Day of last year. She noted that she did not know whether this made the gates less efficient, but that throughout the festival the gates were manually opened and closed.

Bad weather or bad planning?

Nick Fenwick, from the Farmers’ Union of Wales said it “sounds a very unfortunate event. Similarly terrible weather and bad luck have caused shows to be cancelled in the past. You could say it’s symptomatic of extreme weather, but we always have bad weather like this in Wales.”

Some 150 cars were still in the field on Tuesday and an inquiry has begun. ?

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