For centuries, the Dutch have reclaimed land from the sea. But on 1 February, 1953, the sea tried to take back a huge portion from the province of Zeeland in the south of the Netherlands.

 

 
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.

"Water, water, just water, and when you looked around you could hardly see anything," remembers Ria Geluk, who was six years old and lived on a farm. "It was so dark, and all you saw were floating things. The dog floated away on a straw bale and the cattle were climbing in the water with nothing to stand on."
 
No warning
There had been strong storms and heavy winds the previous day, but nothing to indicate that a catastrophe affecting a million people and flooding one-sixth of the Netherlands was imminent. As people slept, the ice-cold waters kept rising. Normally the dykes kept the raging North Sea at bay, but this time they proved too weak to protect the reclaimed land. The first that Geluk's family on the island of Schouwen Duiveland heard what was happening was when a doctor woke them at 4am and warned the dykes had given way.

"Nobody realised at that time what would happen, even if the dykes were broken," says Geluk. At first there seemed no immediate danger. Two workers even arrived to help milk the cows. But soon the men had to flee the barn - leaving all the animals behind, many tied up. "We had horses, some cattle, pigs, chickens, a dog and a cat," she recalls. "Everything drowned and we were saved in the house."

Rising water
As the flooding worsened, the family and workmen became trapped. To stay above the freezing, dirty water they moved to the attic and then onto the roof, where they spent the following night. Her father removed its heavy tiles so the wooden framework would float if the house broke up – a means of escape that saved others' lives.

Further south, in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen near the Westerschelde, Nick Buters was woken at 1am by a neighbour banging on his window to warn him. He and his wife grabbed some food and clothes and headed for the safety of high ground. They saw waves of water rolling over the dike. Soon, the entire area was awash and many residents caught unawares. "They never expected so much water, so a lot of people got surprised in their bed and in their house," he says. "People were hanging from the gutters of the roof and that roof, with people on top of it, was floating out towards the ocean."

An hour before high tide, a 20 metre section of the stone wall protecting the village collapsed "as if they put a knife in the centre and just removed one side". Buters adds: "It was just unbelievable."

Powerlessness
Anna van de Zande recalls the terrible sense of powerlessness, of seeing friends, family and neighbours drowning, but not being able to do anything. "You saw them on roofs and once they called ‘help, help' and then they disappeared under the wreckage." Anyone lucky enough to find a boat had a good chance of surviving, but there were simply not enough boats.

News of the disaster quickly spread and relief operations got under way. Dutch rescue teams were soon backed by aid from other countries, including Britain, Belgium, America and Germany. As Radio Netherlands broadcast on-the-spot reports to the world, a squadron of British Navy helicopters flew in.

Thousands of people volunteered to fill sandbags, search for survivors in rowing boats, or look after the homeless. German soldiers manned American army "Ducks", amphibious vehicles from World War II, to help save the thousands who were trapped.

Royal visit
During the following week, as the scale of the tragedy became clear, Prince Bernard flew over Zeeland with his two young daughters and visited stricken areas to see the devastation. He witnessed the grief and terrible loss of life. Then after a few days he noticed a palpable change of mood, a sense of: "We won't let the sea lick us, we're going to beat it." It was nine months before the final dyke was repaired and the land dry again.

Zeeland ’53 was produced by David Swatling and Liesbeth de Bakker. The documentary was originally broadcast in January 2003 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the disaster.