A Brief History
On November 5, 1530, The St. Felix’s Flood destroyed the city of Reimerswaal in the Netherlands and killed over 100,000 people, making it the fifth deadliest flood in human history.
Digging Deeper
Over the past month, we have seen one city destroyed by a tornado, another by an earthquake, and another by an army. For our fourth city to experience near total devastation, we go back to mother nature.
The now lost city of Reimerswaal in the Netherlands is our victim this time around. Reimerswaal was granted city rights in 1374 during the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (the Netherlands would not become an independent country for a few centuries later). Unfortunately for its inhabitants, a catastrophic flood ravaged the lands that became the Netherlands on Saturday, November 5, 1530, the day of St. Felix’s Feast, during the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. This day, later known as Evil Saturday, marked one of the worst natural disasters to ever afflict the Dutch people. In addition to the destroyed city of Reimerswaal, considerable parts of Flanders and Zeeland washed away from the flood. As Audrey M. Lambert wrote, “all the Oost Wetering of Zuid-Beveland was lost.” Although a small part of the city remained as an island for the next century more floods continued to plague the few people left. Eventually, by 1632, all of the remaining citizens left Reimerswaal as today nothing remains of the city that once existed for a few hundred years. A new city by the same name is located to the South of the former city. The sunken city of Reimerswaal is now a shellfish fishery, providing rich breeding grounds for the mussels that are harvested there.
Indeed, for as disastrous as London’s tornado and Basel’s earthquake were, those cities made a comeback and are to this day major world cities. Reimerswaal has never done so and remains a lost city, a sort of Medieval Atlantis. Instead, what was once a city is now known as Verdronken Land van Reimerswaal (“Drowned Land of Reimerswaal”).
Question for students (and subscribers): What is the worst flood you have experienced? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more on Dutch history, including a brief reference to this flood, please see the following book:
Gray, Jeremy and Kim Renfrew. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Netherlands. DK Eyewitness Travel, 2011.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="611 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=611">22 Comments
I think the flood was the worst disaster of the 1500’s. It left the citizens with nothing, it took out their entire city that had been there for a few hundred years.
I agree with Tyler in the sense that the flood was the worst disaster considering it took out all resources. Everyone in the entire city, who were there for a great deal of time, had their lives swept from under them. I think that is the worst disaster of the 1500s.
I might have missed it, but I didn’t see how many people were killed in this particular flood. I found another article that talked about the Shaanxi Earthquake, January 23, 1556, in northern China. “The catastrophic earthquake had an estimated
magnitude of 8 and killed approximately 830,000 people. This death toll
is believed to have reduced the population of both (Shaanxi and neighboring Shanxi) provinces by about 60
percent.” I don’t know all of the disasters in the 1500’s but this seems quite a devastating one!
Dear Tricia,
We do not know for sure how many died in this flood, but almost assuredly the earthquake you mention in China was far worse, easily one of THE worst natural disasters in human history. The list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll gives you a sense of what were the worst for each type of disaster.
Sincerely,
Dr. Zarzeczny
I agree with Tricia: the Shaanxi Earthquake seems much more catastrophic.Many more people died in the earthquake, leaving more citizens lacking life and friends along with material possessions. If there was a catastrophe in the 1500s that was more devastating, then I cannot imagine it: the loss of life is the greatest loss of all, and this has the greatest death toll of all.
I think that this flood was probably the worst disaster. It killed a lot of people, but along with killing them it left them with nothing. Their homes were destroyed and all of their food was destroyed as well. They also had no ability to go anywhere since everything was flooded.
I agree that earthquake mentioned is the worst. There were so many people killed and along with that, there were so many differnet things that were destroyed that will never be able to be the same. Yes, they can be rebuilt and remade, but it is not the original, which to some is a very upsetting thing.
I agree with the many people who said the earthquake was the worst. Many people died and at the same time many memories of the people were ruined. Many things can be brought back or rebuilt but a devastating thing like this inst something that people can erase.
I believe all these were equally terrible because all of them inflicted death onto someone. Also, it is crazy that so many terrible catastrophes could happen to one place!
that is horrable that it happened to them and killed over 100,00 peope wow they really had bad luck back then or something not going in there favor for all these bad events to happen to them.
With how devastating floods are even today, it’s hard to imagine how any survivors could recover in the already bleak middle ages.
We have floods today, but i feel like we are way better adapted to deal with these than back in the middle ages.
I feel like floods happen a lot now a days. We know to deal with them and usually are warned about them ahead of time. I could not imagine what it would be like back in the middle ages, they probably ad no idea what was going and were more than likely horrified.
that’s horrible that so many people died
I can’t imagine the kind of damage a flood this size would have done in this time period when people were much less equipped to deal with the effects.
I am so thankful I have never had to live thru anything like that. The aftermath would have been horrible.
Really disappointing to know that a city that stood for hundreds of years was wiped out by a single force and virtually nothing was left after its destruction.
So terrible ! Iv never heard of evil Saturday.
So sad that so many people died.
I am interested in where all the water came from to cause such a huge flash flood
another environmental catastrophe added to the many things people in the middle ages had to go through
Mother nature can be very brutal at times.