Does anyone know what this is?

[Finmory]

It's in the basement and is making a loud noise like it's running. The channel leading from the black panel is wet and it's been raining all day.

Is it some sort of automatic pump? Never heard this make a noise before but it's audible from upstairs.

Is it an old house , it's probably a pump to drain the cellar .
We have found it sounds like a war scene or drain monster 🙈

@kaos2 yes it's an old house! OK that's reassuring that you have the same and it's incredibly loud.

So strange as I've never heard it come on before, must have been an unusual amount of rain today.

It is likely a sump pump. It should not be loud or leaking water.
As you didn’t know what it was, it likely has not been serviced recently.

A sump pump is often installed in basements to pump out water during heavy rains that cause the ground water table to rise above the floor of the basement. . They are set to turn on when water fills a pit that just below the floor level of your basement.

If it stops working, your basement will flood

Ours isn't incredibly loud but you can hear it and it's in good working order ( dh is very skilled )

The sound is the water being pumped out

Yes you’d hear as much as you would when your washing machine drains.

But it should not be so “incredibly loud” that you can hear it upstairs, nor should it be leaking water onto the basement floor see OP’s photo.

Thanks for responses, it's really helpful to understand what is/isn't normal. It's still going and rain stopped a while ago.

I'll flag this to the landlord tomorrow as it sounds like something is amiss. Been here more than a year and never heard it running so clearly something wrong.

It is normal for it to go for hours or even days after rain stops (depends on how much water has fallen and where your house is in terms of natural drainage), the pump will go until the ground water level goes down again.

The Landlord should definitely have had it serviced at least once by now and this is a good time of year to do it as Spring is usually heaviest rains.

Thanks @ToBeDetermined that's good to know, I'll definitely flag this tomorrow to make sure all is in order