The 1953 North Sea Flood · The Water That Came at Night

On the night of 31 January 1953 a North Sea storm surge met a spring tide, and the dikes of the south-west Netherlands broke in long stretches. Sea water poured into the villages within hours; more than eighteen hundred people did not survive.

Afterwards the Netherlands began the Delta Works, sealing the sea inlets with huge movable barriers and recalculating the whole southern line of the country.

A memorial wall stands by the Zeeland coast. The old people there say that before that night the water had been a friend; after it, the water became a neighbour to be watched.

Historical Mysteries / Zeeland · Netherlands / 1953