Heavy storms may sometimes cause huge volumes of
water to depart from a river's natural course and spread
over previously dry land. Unstoppable and all-pervasive,
the resulting floods can be devastating to human life."
(Natural Disasters, Readers Digest, 1996)
Flooded areas of land usually start off as very dry land. Floods are caused by heavy rains that pour to much water into rivers and other waterways. Making these natural channels unable to carry all the water. Rising water flows over or breaks the banks to the waterways causing the surrounding land to be flooded. Different causes of floods can come from masses of snow melting of tidal waves.
The type of land that is prone to flooding are broad and flat usually situated on the banks of a river or main waterway. Rivers that flood are regarded in three different stages. They are:-
ONE:- Water comes off the mountains, eroding the beds and banks of the river as it flows.
TWO:- This type river travels through broad valleys which slows the current of the river down. If the current is slow it will transport less material down the river.
THREE:- Flood-plain stage. Little if not any erosion takes place most of the material tha tis carried in the current is suspended and deposited to the form a flood plain.
Year | Place | Cause | Distruction |
1893 | Brisbane QLD | Brisbane River banks broke | Washed away Albert Raliway bridge at Indorroopilly. |
1954 | N.S.W | Over Raining Flooded | Water flooded houses at great speed |
1955 | Dubbo, Tamworth, Wellington, Narromine and Warren. | Rain Depression | Damaged fences , roads railways and bridges also killing lots of farm animals |
1973 | Northern Territory | Rivers and Stagnant pools over flowed. | No distruction but a good flow of water to arid desert. So it was a benefitial flood. |
For at least 5000 Years | Egypt Nile | Nile river overflows | Brings silt from up the river that is used for fertile soil. |
The bible has an account of the greatest flood to ever happen. The following chapters out of Genesis tell how God explained to Noah to build the ark before the great flood.
GENESIS:- 7:4,7
God said to Noah, "Seven days from now I will
send rain to the earth for forty days and forty
nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth
every living creature I have made." Noah was six
hundred years old when the floodwaters came on
the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and
his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters
of the flood.