Glastonbury transformed into marsh, nobody cares

  • 23/06/2016
(Twitter)
(Twitter)

Torrential rain has turned Britain's summer music festival Glastonbury into a quagmire, and some festival-goers had already been queuing in traffic for 12 hours to get there.

The crowds arrived  with their belongings piled into wheelbarrows, shopping trolleys and ruck sacks, entering the marshy arena when the gates opened -- with many sleeping outside to ensure their early entrance.

BBC Weather's Tomasz Schafernaker said it's not surprising the festival is often muddy, as Britain gets a lot of rainfall from the Atlantic at this time of the year.

It's not helped by the type of soil the grounds are on either. Its clay-based, which prevents drainage -- and to make matters worse, the festival's situated in a valley.

"The trouble with clay is it's made up of very, very fine particles," James Hutton Institute soil physicist Dr Kenneth Loades told the BBC.

"Soil in a field has holes -- that's where the water goes in to and also where there's air. When it rains, these holes fill up with water, which makes it go into a horrible squishy mess."

But 175, 000 music fans seemed to be taking the chaos in their stride -- and to brighten up their mood further, the forecast for the weekend is good.

Newshub.