Good morning, all

The village of Wilnis, between Amsterdam and Utrecht, has been flooded last
night, due to a dike-burst. Maybe I should add that dike-bursts are very
rare in the Netherlands ;-); and maily occur in very heavy and extreme
weathesituations ; like February 1st 1953.

The dike is swept away over about a hunderd meters; and of course the gap
immediately has been closed; with sand and sandbags, as a temporary
solution. A large part of the village had to be evacuated.
In the mean time the media are speculating how this could happen. Most say
its due to the drought; the dike would have been crumbled off by a lack of
water and very low water-levels in the canal. Some tell a more interesting
story.
Het Westland, just north of Rotterdam, close beyond the North Sea dunes is a
very important horticulture area for Holland.
Due to the current low water-levels in the rivers, salt springwater of the
North Sea is threatening the region.
Therefore the district water board decided to a quite unique project:
bringing sweet water from the IJsselmeer into the Westland. Via some rivers,
mainly de Amstel and de Vecht, and canals. This is rather hard for the
Amstel and Vecht flow into the IJsselmeer. So the water-flow has to be
reversed! Well, it works: via sluices and pumping-systems sweet water is
brought to the Westland indeed!
But as the flow turned the dike near Wilnis obviously couldn't stand this
pressure; and burst last night.

Of course the real cause of this disaster is a topic of reseach for our
civil-engineers in the days to come.


Wijke
SE Flevopolder ( ms 3 m asl; and not scared at all ;-)) )
The Netherlands
Tact 22,4 C - 2/8 cumuli - north 3 - 56 % - 1016 HpA steady.