The Yellow River (Huang He) in China is prone to flooding, due to the broad expanse of largely flat land
around it. The 1887 Yellow River floods devastated the area, killing between 900,000-2,000,000 people. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded. For centuries, the farmers living near the Yellow River had built dikes to contain the rising waters, caused by silt accumulation on the riverbed. In 1887, this rising riverbed, coupled with days of heavy rain, overcame the dikes, causing a massive flood. The waters of the Yellow River are generally thought to have broken through the dikes in Huayankou, near the city of Zhengzhou in Henan province. Owing to the low-lying plains near the area, the flood spread very quickly throughout Northern China, covering an estimate 50,000 square miles, swamping agricultural settlements and commercial centers. After the flood, two million were left homeless. The resulting pandemic and lack of basic essentials claimed as many lives as those lost directly by the flood itself. It was one of the worst floods in history, though the later 1931 Yellow River flood may have killed as many as two million. Bihar Floods
2008 Bihar flood is a flood during monsoon season that affected over 1.2 million people in northern part of Bihar, India. On August 18, the Koshi River in the northern part of the state breaking its embankment and drowning towns and villages. Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek his help in dealing with the "catastrophe" caused by floods after the river Koshi suddenly changed its course in neighboring Nepal[1]. The flood has destroyed several acres of standing crop as the river picked up a channel it had abandoned over 200 years ago. The worst affected districts included, Madhepura Bhagalpur, Araria and West Champaran. Relief work was carried with Indian Air Force helicopters dropping relief materials in the worst hit districts. Flooding in the central Appalachians - November 1985 us The antecedent event to this flood was the passage of Hurricane Juan to the west of the area, which led to over 175 mm (7 in) of rain in the Blue Ridge Mountains, though less than 25 mm (1 in) to the Mountain State. After Juan passed by, an occluded system moved slowly northward from the Gulf of Mexico through the Mid-Atlantic States during the first days of November, leading to significant rainfall for the central Appalachians. Local amounts of 508 mm (20 in) of rain were reported from West Virginia, worse than the flooding the state witnessed in 1888. [38] [39] This led to debris flows and widespread damage in the Upper Potomac River basin and Cheat River Basin in West Virginia and Virginia. Damage was severe where the South
Branch joins the North Branch of the Potomac. The Paw Paw Tunnel was flooded. [19] The death toll was 50 from West Virginia. Netherlands St. Lucia's flood (Sint-Luciavloed) was a massive flood that affected the Netherlands and Northern Germany on December 14, 1287 (the day after St. Lucia Day) when a dike broke during a storm, killing approximately 50,000 to 80,000 people in the fifth largest flood in recorded history. Much land was permanently flooded in what is now the Waddenzee and IJsselmeer. It especially affected the north of the Netherlands, particularly Friesland. The Griend disappeared almost completely under the waves. The name Zuiderzee dates from this event, as the water had merely been a shallow inland lake when the first dikes were being built, but rising North Sea levels created the "Southern Sea" when floods including this flood came in. United Kingdom floods The 2007 United Kingdom floods were a series of destructive floods that broke out in various areas across the country during the summer of 2007. The most severe floods occurred across Northern Ireland on 12 June; East Yorkshire and The Midlands on 15 June; Yorkshire, The Midlands, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire on 25 June; and Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and South Wales on 20 July. June was one of the wettest months on record in Britain (see List of weather records). Average rainfall across England was 140 millimeters (5.5 in), more than double the June average. Some areas received a month's worth of precipitation in just 24 hours.[1] It was Britain's wettest May- July since records began (in 1776).[2] July had unusually unsettled weather and above-average rainfall through the month, peaking on 20 July as an active frontal system dumped more than 120 mm (4.7 in) of rain in Southern England.[3] Civil[4] and military[4][5][6][7][8] authorities described the June and July rescue efforts as the biggest in peacetime Britain. The Environment Agency described the July floods as critical[8] and expected them to exceed the 1947 benchmark.[9]
