Worldwide floods show lessons still need learning

By Peter Apps

LONDON (Reuters) - As communities around the world battle the worst floods in living memory, experts warn such events may become more frequent due to climate change and that lessons still need to be learnt to limit losses.

Floods may result in lower death tolls than earthquakes, wars or tsunamis -- and therefore gain less international attention -- but they can cause similar devastation.

Recent weeks have seen a string of such disasters.

Parts of China had the heaviest rainfall since records began, killing more than 400. Some 770 people have been killed by flooding in South Asia with hundreds of thousands displaced by flash floods in southern Pakistan.

"They had no time to react," said UNICEF spokeswoman Kathryn Grusovin from the affected province of Baluchistan.

"They hadn't seen rains like this in living memory. There had been episodes of flooding but this was right off the map. You are talking massive amounts of rain that has never been seen before."

It is a similar story around the globe.

More than 50 people were killed in Sudan. Hundreds had to flee homes in northern England as the water rose. In Colombia, slums disappeared under rising floodwaters and some 50,000 people were displaced.