How do floods happen for kids

If people drink this dirty water, they may suffer from diseases such as typhoid and cholera, hepatitis and other such diseases. People can get ready to survive a flood by filling many containers with fresh and clean drinking water and storing other emergency supplies; like: medicine and food. During flood people try to go to higher sides because the flood water wouldn't reach high areas. Also drains overflow and mix with clean water and people who drink it might fall ill.

Flooding is usually caused when a volume of water within a water body, such as a lake , overflows outside it. Sometimes if a dam breaks, it suddenly releases a large amount of water. The result is that some of the water travels to land, and 'floods' the area. Many rivers are in a channel, between river banks. Understand how floods happen, the different types of flood events and much more with our flood facts for kids. A flood is the submerging of normally dry land by an overflow of water.

Depending on their type, floods can develop very slowly over time after extensive rains or in just a few minutes, very quickly, without any sign of rain. Floods can be a localised event affecting a small area of land or a very large disaster that can have an impact on entire islands or river basins. There are many types and ways floods can occur, including, due to overflowing rivers , due to extreme coastal events, by natural or artificial ground saturation from excess rainfall, or by catastrophic failure in infrastructure.

River flooding is the most common type of flood event. If the flow rate exceeds the capacity of the river channel then flooding of the surrounding area can occur. A flood is a rise of water with no place to go. Floods come in all depths, from just a couple inches to many feet. The power of floodwater is extraordinary and lethal.

In less than an hour, strong rain can turn an ankle deep creek into an unstoppable foot-high swell that overpowers everything in its path. Floods occur all over the world. Causes of floods include hurricanes, broken levees or dams, rapidly thawing snow, ice jams, and heavy slow moving rain or repeated rains. This is why it is so important that you never drive, ride in a car, truck, bike or ATV if it is going to drive into the water.

It only takes 6 inches of water to knock a person off their feet and only 2 inches of water for someone to drown. Fast-moving floodwaters have destroyed bridges, uprooted trees , and even washed entire houses away. In some places, yearly flooding brings silt soil that is filled with vitamins and minerals onto fields used by farmers for raising different kinds of vegetables we eat. When the floodwaters are gone, the silt stays to make the soil extra-rich for raising good food. In other areas, flooding provides a way to collect water to be used throughout the year to water crops.