1998 Bangladesh floods
Encyclopedia
The 1998 Bangladesh floods was one of the most destructive flooding events in modern world history, where about two-third of the Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

 was covered by the waters of the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and the Meghna.

Causes

The main causes of the floods were unusually severe monsoon
Monsoon
Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...

 rains and an unusually high volume of runoff from melting snow from the snow caps of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

. These all increased the amount of surface water and the volume of water in Bangladesh's two main rivers, which are very large and connect. The Ganges and the Brahmaputra both had more than the normal amount of water that they could carry and so were overflowing and flooding.

A number of human factors also contributed to the devastating flooding of Bangladesh, including large amounts of deforestation
Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....

 and overfarming. Deforestation for logging or farming removes trees that would otherwise absorb and delay the flow of rainwater. Overfarming ruins the soil and so water just goes straight through it and doesn't soak into the ground for groundwater. This means that the maximum amount of surface water can travel down the hills and tributaries.

Bangladesh itself is a very poor and highly populated country and cannot afford necessary defense against flooding such as flood banks/walls or rescue services to help survivors and refugees.

Consequences

The floodwaters swallowed 300,000 houses, 9700 kilometres (6,027 mi) of road and 2700 kilometres (1,678 mi) of embankment. Around 1,000 people drowned in the flooding or died from diseases like typhoid and cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

from contaminated water. The flooding dealt a devastating blow to agriculture; 135,000 cattle and 700,000 hectares of crops were lost land. The material destruction was overwhelming: 30 million people lost their homes, 50 square kilometre of land was destroyed and 11000 kilometres (6,835 mi) of roads damaged or destroyed.
Most of the destruction occurred in the Ganges delta.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK