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Floods (natural disasters)




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aggravate

arson

avalanche

blizzard

board

bush fire

cargo aircraft

casualties

civil defense

coercion

commit

department

disaster management and response

drought

earthquake

elimination

emergency

emergency situation source

eepidemic

famine

flood

hail

hazard

heat wave

heavy snowfall

hurricane

impact

landslide

maelstrom (= vortex)

malnutrition

man-made (human-made) disaster

mudslide (mudflow)

natural disaster

natural phenomenon

objective

perish

pouring rain

power outage

provide for

rapid response

ruin

Russian Rescue Corps

scale

social hazard

solar flare

starvation

structural collapse

surge

target

temperature inversions

threat

tornado outbreak

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waterfall

waterspout

whirlpool

wildfire


As we all know, water is absolutely necessary for life on Earth. Yet too much water in the wrong place can bring death and destruction. Floods have been part of human history for thousands of years. In recent centuries there have been extraordinary floods, especially in India, Bangladesh, China and the United States. There are two major causes of the floods in these countries: great rivers (for example, the Mississippi and the Ganges), and sea-storms whose tidal waves wash sea water all over the coast.

Bangladesh is a very low-lying country at the mouth of the River Ganges. It is one of the most highly-populated countries in the world, and many of its people live on land that is only centimeters above the level of the sea. Every year summer rains and the snow from the Himalaya mountains push the water-level up.

One of the worst flood disasters happened in November 1970, when a storm in the Bay of Bengal caused strong winds and waves at sea. These tidal waves made a moving wall of water, which then hit thousands of houses built on the low, flat land where the River Ganges meets the sea. Whole villages disappeared, and nearly one million people lost their lives.

At the time of this disaster, Bangladesh was called East Pakistan, and the central government of Pakistan was in Karachi, 2,400 kilometres away. Many people believed that the far-away government did not spend enough money to prevent and control floods. The 1970 flood helped to push East Pakistan towards self-government, and as a result the separate country of Bangladesh was born the following year.

In May 1985, another sea-storm hit Bangladesh, killing ten thousand poor farmers. By this time Bangladesh had good equipment for storm warnings. Warnings were sent to thousands of people who were living in villages near the coast, or on low-lying islands off the coast. One of these islands was called Urir Char, and many of the people had moved there after their homes were flooded and destroyed in the 1970 tidal wave. However, many of the poor farmers did not believe the warnings, and many did not want to leave their tiny pieces of land: all land in Bangladesh is valuable. Some people stood on the roofs of their houses, but they were washed away. Abu Qued (name) survived by holding on to a tree, but his wife and six other people in his family were washed away by the water. Another man, Abdul Jalil, lost ten people from his family. His face was sad, but he could not cry: for him, as for many people in Bangladesh, this was simply the will of God.

In November 1977, a tidal wave six metres high hit the state of Andhra Pradesh, in India, causing 90 per cent of the people in some villages to lose their lives. For many days and weeks, the bodies of dead people and animals remained in the rivers.

In this flood, drowning was not the only cause of death. Floods often cut off roads, so food and medicines cannot reach the people near the disaster. In fact, as a result of the 1977 flood in Andhra Pradesh, one hundred thousand people died because they had no food to eat.

The United States also suffers from the destruction of wind and water. The mighty Mississippi is America’s most important river, but it has always been a great danger to life and land. For many years, the people who came to live near the Mississippi built great walls to hold back the waters after heavy rains.

However, in April 1927, the river broke through the walls, and the homes of 750,000 people disappeared under water. Millions of square acres of land in seven states were flooded. At one place, hundreds of people tried to reach safety by climbing on to a bridge. They stayed there for three days and three nights before people could save them.

One small town was flooded with water seventeen meters deep, and the same nearly happened to the great city of New Orleans. However, the state government decided to make a hole in one of the flood walls, so that the brown flood-waters could find a shorter way to reach the sea. That hole saved the city, and many, many lives.

The great flood of April 1927 was not fully controlled until the month of July. By that time, 350,000 people were homeless, 300 people had died, and damage costing 300 million dollars had been caused.

After that disastrous flood, a new system of flood control was built along the Mississippi River. However, this did not prevent the river from flooding again in 1973 and 1983. In fact, a recent study has shown that the volume of water in the Mississippi has risen by 250 per cent in the last fifty years. It seems that there may be still more floods to come.

 




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