Jomoud's Fotothing

My 2008 trip to Holland

VIANEN

The flood barriers in the river Lek near Vianen. These barriers are a part of the Delta Project.

1953 - Flood disaster
The Dutch struggle against the waters.
In February 1953 the Netherlands faced disaster when the dikes protecting the southwest of the country were breached by the joint onslaught of a hurricane-force northwesterly wind and exceptionally high spring tides. The flood came in the night without warning, a fateful combination of freak high tides and gale-force winds that killed 1,835 people. Almost 200,000 hectares of land was swamped, 3,000 homes and 300 farms destroyed, and 47,000 heads of cattle drowned. It was The Netherlands' worst disaster for 300 years.
Flooding caused by storm surges were nothing new to the Netherlands, but this time the nation was stunned by the extent of a disaster unparalleled for centuries.
Emergency aid flowed in from all over the world to help soften the blow to a country only just recovering from war. Ironically enough, the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management had published a policy document only a few days previously detailing plans to prevent precisely this sort of disaster. The document proposed that all the tidal inlets and estuaries in the provinces of Zeeland and South Holland should be dammed. In the light of the disaster, urgent action was taken to implement this plan, known as the 'Delta Project'.