Are floods dangerous? Or why they are happening? Here are five fascinating floods facts for kids.
Floods happen when lots of water covers up land that is normally dry. They can cause lots of damage to houses and cars and they are very dangerous.
Floods are also the most common natural disaster in the world and they can happen anywhere. Every city in the world has plans to help in case of flood and people have many different ways they try to stop floods from happening.
Japan is a small island and they flood a lot. The capital city of Tokyo has a special way of stopping flooding from happening. It is called the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel. This massive room fills up with water and pumps it away from the city so that it doesn’t rush into the streets. There are also five big chambers to hold even more water.
The underground room can hold 135 million litres of water that’s enough water to fill 54 Olympic swimming pools! That’s a lot of water!
Floods can reach up to 30 feet in height which is around the length of a school bus. Only 6 inches of water are enough to knock someone over. That’s water that is only as tall as a toothbrush.
12 inches of water can sweep away a small car. Water is super strong which is why it is important to get to high ground when floods happen.
Flood plains are areas of land that flood every year. They are used to grow crops because the flood water actually helps.
The water brings in a thing called silt, which is soil filled with nutrients which are good for the crops. This helps the crops grow big and strong. Flood plains are used to grow all kinds of crops such as corn and soybeans.
There are lots of stories from religion and mythologies that talk about floods. You might know the story of Noah’s arc from the Bible which talks about God flooding the Earth and Noah building a big boat for his family and all the animals.
Greek Mythology believed that Zeus wanted to flood to Earth and a man named Deucalion created an arc for him and his wife to escape the flood.
Mythology from Hawaii also has a flood story. Nu-u created a house on a boat to escape the flooding and the god Kāne came down on a rainbow to explain the flood afterwards. Nu-u saved his family and the animals from the flood.
So many stories about floods!
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about floods as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic these floods are, you can move on to learn about other climate and weather stuff like: Thunder, Thunderstorms, Thunder and Lightning, Rainbows, Lightning, Floods, Earth’s Atmosphere, Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Blizzard, Wind and Tsunamis.
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