Essay On Floods

floods

Thousands of years ago before people built towns and planted crops, rivers cut deep canyons and molded the continents. Often these rivers overflowed their banks and flooded the surrounding areas, depositing mineral rich silt and soil in the surrounding plains and valleys. Because of the way floods enrich soil some of the first cities were built along rivers. The most important ones grew along the Indus River in Pakistan; the Nile in Egypt; the Yellow River in China; and the Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East. These rivers floodplains are called the "cradles of civilization". (Michael Burgan &Robin Doak) Even though floods happen everywhere, there are only four types of floods. River floods occur along rivers and usually...show more content... These earthquakes cause tsunamis, which are huge waves. Tsunamis travel longdistances across the ocean before reaching land where they flood the coasts, drown people, and smash buildings. (Dennis Fradin) Volcano eruptions can also cause tsunamis like in 1883 when Krakatoa erupted killing 37,000 people making it the worst tsunami in history. China is the largest and most populated country on the earth. It is also where the worst flood in history occurred. In 1887 the Yellow River toped its seventy–foot–tall levees and flooded eleven cities and hundreds of surrounding villages. This flood became the deadliest flood ever by killing at least 900,000 people. Thousands of square miles of farmland was covered in water that sometimes stood twenty feet deep over farm houses. It took two years for this much water to recede. With crops washed away there was little to eat; it is not known how many starved to death. In 1889 Johnstown Pennsylvania flooded. Fourteen miles away from Johnstown the Little Conemaugh River had been dammed to form Lake Conemaugh. The dam was owned by a country club and was known to be in poor condition. The members sailed and fished on the lake but did little to repair the dam. May 30, 1889 was Memorial Day and it rained hard. The river and lake rose quickly and the next day the water topped the dam and spilled over Get

Management before the floods in Malaysia is based on the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP ) as determined by the NSC to agencies like Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID), Public Works Departments (JKR), Department of Meteorology and Local Authorities (PBT) includes two steps, namely, structured and unstructured. Structural measures adopted inMalaysia are like dams and dykes to control flood flows and non–structural measures are such as land use planning and flood forecasting and warning systems to mitigate the effects of floods (Chan, 2012; Khalid, & Shafiai, 2015). Structural measures implemented to reduce the danger of flooding so as not to pose a greater hazard to people in the flood plain. Agencies involved in the success of...show more content...

In addition, the short message system (SMS) is also provided to warn employees of related government agencies such as the Police, the Army, the Malaysian Meteorological Department (JMM), Civil Defense Department, the Department, and National Security Division (BKN) in the Prime Minister and other agencies involved (Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran, 2013). The Meteorological Department has also provided a weather forecast web site to facilitate public access to current weather conditions. In 2001, Malaysia has introduced 'Manual Saliran Mesra Alam' (MSMA) to be used as a tool in integrated flood management (Chan, 2012; Musa, Chan, Ku Mahamud, Karim, & Zaini, 2013). In contrast, an example of which is seen nonstructural methods are effective flood forecasting and warning system (Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran, 2013). The methods used for the management of flood disclosed before it has been shown that Malaysia has certainly had an initiative to reduce the impact of floods on human health and life at risk areas.

Management of flood victims during and after the flooding situation in Malaysia also is based on Directive No. 20. According to MKN (2012), during the current disaster management involves a number of rescue agencies on the scene as the Special Search and Rescue Team Malaysia (SMART), the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM),

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The Queensland Floods

The Queensland floods were a devastating natural disaster which occurred mainly in Brisbane and surrounding areas from 2010 around mid december to early 2011 in January. The Queensland floods lasted for around 1 month and created a lot of damage leaving many people with nothing including no home and nowhere to go. Many areas were affected but the main areas were those around the banks of the Burnett River as well as the Fitzroy river. Unfortunately as time moved on theflood spread to many neighbouring cities affecting hundreds of thousands of people. A flood is "an overflow of a large amount of water beyond its normal limits, especially over what is normally dry land", therefore being classified as hydrochloric process being part of the branch...show more content...

This disaster struck mid/late December around the 20th and lasted until around the same time in January. Within this month a lot of lives had been changed and still changed for a long time after the disaster hit. Some of the social impacts include 35 people's lives being lost as well as over 200 000 people being affected by the floods by both injury and loss/damage to homes. It was also a massive stress on many of the people involved as it was uncertain whether your house was protected or not as well as the lives of their families. In terms of economic impacts all damages made came to around 2.38 billion AUD. This is a drastic number and shows just how violent and damaging a flood can be as well as the amount that would have been damaged to create this massive price tag. Some of the economic impacts includes many people losing their homes and being put in a tough financial state especially if their insurance does not cover the costs or even if they have no insurance at all. Other impacts also include businesses being put under financial pressure if buildings are destroyed as well as insurance loss on top of that. Lastly the environmental impacts which would be one of the largest impacts affected as many habitats were destroyed as well as many animals lost. It also damaged many ecosystems as well as waterways which had a large impact on the soil making it erode

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Natural Disasters: An examination of the causes, effects, and options available to mitigate natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, subsidence, flooding, severe weather, and meteorite impacts. Natural Disaster Information: 1. Natural Disasters in General

2. Earthquakes 3. Volcanic Eruptions 4. Tsunami 5. Landslides 6. Floods 7. Weather Related Disasters 8. Meteorite Impacts NATURAL DISASTERS IN GENERAL: Natural disasters This being my senior project I wanted to look at a topic that I found interesting. Even though I find most topics in the fields interesting, none catch my attention better than natural disasters. I have always found disasters intriguing and have wanted to know more...show more content...

The most commonly referenced of Natural Disasters are Tornadoes. A Tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour, are approximately 250 feet across, and travel a few miles before dissipating. The most extreme can attain wind speeds of more than 300 mph, stretch more than two miles across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles. Some of the most violent tornadoes develop from super cell thunderstorms. A super cell thunderstorm is a long–lived thunderstorm possessing within its structure a continuously rotating updraft of air. These storms have the greatest tendency to produce tornadoes, some of the huge wedge shape. The super cell thunderstorm has a