Holland, the little lowland country “redeemed from the seas,” has suffered worst, from the nature of its situation. Protected, as it is, by dikes, which separate the land from the water by artificial means, a constant vigilance has been required of its people to prevent the ocean from claiming its own. In both the deluges of 1421 and 1530 the immediate cause was a breaking down of the dikes. The records of both are meager, although the mere lists of the drowned suffice to show how awful the havoc must have been. The inundation at Dort began at Dordrecht, where a heavy storm caused the dikes at that point to give way. In that territory alone 10,000 people were overwhelmed and perished, while over 100,000 were drowned in and around Dullart in Friesland and Zealand. The subsequent inundation of 1530 was the most frightful on record. It nearly annihilated the Netherlands, and only to the indomitable pluck and industry which have ever characterized the inhabitants of that country was its subsequent recovery due.
In 1108 Flanders was inundated by the sea. The submerged districts comprised an enormous area, and the harbor and town of Ostend were completely covered by water. The present city was built above a league from the channel, where the old one still lies beneath the waves.
An awful inundation occurred at Dantzig on April 9, 1829, occasioned by the Vistula breaking through some of its dikes. Numerous lives were lost, and, the records state, 4,000 houses and 10,000 head of cattle were destroyed.
A large part of Zealand was overflowed in 1717, and 1,300 of the inhabitants were lost in the floods. Hamburg, while her citizens with but few exceptions were saved, sustained an almost incalculable loss to property. The same city was again half flooded on January 1, 1855, and enormous damage suffered.
In the Silesian flood spoken of above the ruin of the French army under MacDonald, which was in that country at the time, was materially accelerated by the forces of nature.
One of the worst floods Germany ever had occurred in March, 1816; 119 villages were laid under water and a great loss of life and property followed the inundation.
The floods in China and that portion of the Eastern Hemisphere, from time immemorial peculiarly subject to such calamities, have always entailed losses about which little has been known. No definite statistics of loss of life and damages have ever been obtainable. In recent years there have been floods there which are known to have been very disastrous, but that is practically all that can be said. In October, 1833, occurred one of the worst floods in the empire. Ten thousand houses were swept away and 1,000 persons perished in Canton alone, while equal or perhaps greater calamity was produced in other sections of the country.
At Vienna the dwellings of 50,000 inhabitants were laid under water in February, 1830.
Two thousand persons perished in Navarre in September, 1787, from torrents from the mountains produced by excessive rains.
The beautiful Danube of poetry and song has, on numerous occasions, risen in its might, and brought disaster and distress to the inhabitants of the countries through which it winds. Pesth, near Presburg, suffered to an enormous extent from its overflow in April, 1811. Twenty-four villages were swept away, and a large number of their inhabitants perished.