June 7, 1982

Torrential weekend rains and overflowing rivers swamped wide areas of Connecticut yesterday with the state's worst floods in decades. The state police said that eight persons were dead or missing in the storm. More than 1,300 others were removed from their homes as floodwaters invaded residential areas, washed out roads and earthen dams and disrupted electric and telephone service and public transportation for tens of thousands of residents. The floods, accompanied by 5 to 8 inches of pounding rain, struck a wide swath of the state, from Westport and other Fairfield County communities on the west to Waterford and New London on the east. At least 38,000 homes were hit by power blackouts, and 6,000 telephones were knocked out. Nearly all trains in the state, including those operated by Amtrak between New York and Boston, were halted as Conrail and Amtrak used buses to carry passengers. Commuters and long-distance travelers were expected to face further delays today. Many communities in flooded areas canceled school for today.

The Security Council unanimously demanded tonight that Israel pull its invading forces out of Lebanon. There was, however, no indication that Israel would pay any more attention to this order than to the unanimous Council demand Saturday night for a cease-fire. Instead, Yehuda Z. Blum, the Israeli delegate, taunted the Council's 15 members for ''evincing not the slightest interest'' in scores of terrorist acts he attributed to the Palestine Liberation Organization. ''How many Israelis have to be killed by terrorists for this Council to be persuaded that the limits of our endurance have been reached?'' he asked rhetorically. ''Israel cannot expect this body even to deplore P.L.O. barbarism against Israel's civilian population, let alone take any steps with a view towards curbing that barbarism.''

The rate of decline in the economy increased sharply in May, casting further doubts on a recovery until later in the year at the earliest, according to a monthly survey of purchasing managers in the nation's leading industrial companies. ''This could be the dark before the dawn, but we really have no evidence of that at all,'' said Charles T. Haffey, chairman of the National Association of Purchasing Management, whose index of economic conditions is closely followed by the Government. ''At the purchasing managers' conference they were all saying the second half would be better, but that is on the opinion side,'' he added. Production, incoming new orders and employment fell off sharply from April, amounting to ''the worst performance for new orders and production since December,'' the association's study said. The rate of decline in the economy has been improving since December, ''but May definitely reversed the trend,'' the study said.

International Israel invaded southern Lebanon by land, sea and air in an attack aimed at destroying the main bases of the Palestine Liberation Organization. More than 250 tanks and armored personnel carriers backed up by thousands of infantrymen rolled past observation posts of the United Nations peacekeeping troops and spread out over the frontier, according to a United Nations spokesman in Beirut. (Page A1, Column 6.) The Israeli Army was ordered to push Palestinian forces northward to a distance of 25 miles from Israel's border so that the P.L.O. artillery would be removed beyond the range of Israeli territory, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said in a letter to President Reagan. (A1:5-6.)

''Our computers are down, our telephones are out and there are four to five inches of water on the floor.'' -Warren Silverzahn of the National Weather Service in Bloomfield, Conn. (B4:2.)