HISTORIC FLOODS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 23

HISTORIC FLOODS

WATERS THAT DESTROYED CITIES

The destructive powers of large concentrations of water has been strikingly demonstrated by the recent catastrophic floods in England, and the bursting of the St. Francis dam in California.

Right down through the ages, from the distant era when Noah rode safely in the Ark, history tells of whole cities crumbling and sinking beneath the terrible onslaught of rising waters or cloudbursts, of armies perishing by flood, and of overflowing rivers spreading death and desolation. Such a disaster occurred in Flanders in 1108. The sea broke over the land, completely submerging the city of Ostend and creating havoc throughout the country. The present wellknown resort of the same name is built more than a league from the channel where the ancient city of Ostend lies submerged. Holland Dykes Break

Holland has been the worst sufferer from inundations, because of the erosion of its dykes. The famous Zuider Zee did not exist before 1446. On April 17 of that year the sea broke in at Dort and overwhelmed 72 villages, drowning 100,000 people. This was followed in 1530 by a general inundation through a leak in the dykes. The toll in lives on that occasion was estimated at 400.000. England was shaken to its core in 1453 by the overflowing of the Severn for 10 days, carrying thousands of men, women aud children on its crest. “The Great Waters,” this flood was called. Turkish Troops Trapped The Danube burst its banks in ISII, and swept off 24 villages aud tlieir inhabitants. It again broke loose two years later, and annihilated a Turkish corps of 2,000, which -was trapped on a small island. In the same year (1S13) the French Forces under Marshal Macdonald, in Silesia, were practically destroyed by floods, which swept the country and brought death to 6,000 of the inhabitants.

France, Italy, Spain, Germany and America have also yielded enormous tolls in life and property to the flood demon.

The strangest flood on record was probably that which inundated Yorkshire in 1686. It w r as caused by the bursting of an enormous rock, which, in the words of the historian, “opened and poured out water at the height of a church steeple/*