Floods have become an almost regular annual feature in India. We read reports like the Brahmaputra, the Ganga, the Jamuna, the Narmada, the Tapi and the other small rivers getting flooded almost every year.
Floods may be caused by excessive rainfall in foe catchment area of a river, by earthquake, by breach in a dam. In,North India floods are caused even in summer by the melting of the snow in the Himalayas.
Floods take a heavy toll of life and property. They flood vast areas of land. Low-lying areas are completely submerged in water. People lose all their belongings and become homeless. Standing crop and goods lying in shops, warehouses and factories are destroyed. Roads, railway-lines and bridges are damaged. Means of communication are disrupted. Failure of electricity plunges vast areas into darkness.
People stranded in floods have to remain without food and water for days together.
Floods destroy the uppermost fertile layer of the earth and turn cultivable land barren. This long-term effect of the flood is far more damaging than the other short-term effects.
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