A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows causing the result that some of the water escapes its usual boundaries.While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow melt, it is not a significant flood unless the water covers land used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area, roads, expanses of farmland, etc.
The Limpopo River, in southern Mozambique, during the 2000 Mozambique flood
Some of the most notable floods include:
The Johnstown Flood of 1889 where over 2200 people lost their lives when the South Fork Dam holding back Lake Conemaugh broke.
The Huang He (Yellow River) in China floods particularly often. The Great Flood of 1931 caused between 800,000 and 4,000,000 deaths.
The Great Flood of 1993 was one of the most costly floods in United States history.
The North Sea flood of 1953 which killed 2251 people in the Netherlands and eastern England
The 1998 Yangtze River Floods, in China, left 14 million people homeless.The 2000 Mozambique flood covered much of the country for three weeks, resulting in hundreds of deaths, and leaving the country devastated for many years.
The 2005 Mumbai floods which killed 1094 people.
The 2010 Pakistan floods directly affected about 20 million people, mostly by dispolacement, destruction of crops, infrastructure, property and livelihood, with a death toll of close to 2,000.