Rainfall and Malta do not usually behave as the best of neighbours. Rainwater can either be generally ungenerous or vindictively unmanageable. Today, I will home on some images of those rarer occasions when nature let loose and ended frighteningly destructive.

A military truck blocked by floods in Valley Road, Birkirkara, on November 22, 1915. Postcard by Alexander Nicefaro

Geography has punished particular areas in the islands with a greater propensity for flooding than others. In Malta, Msida and Birkirkara; in Gozo, Xlendi. But nowhere claims total immunity.

The destruction caused by a post-war flood in Xlendi.

Not frequently, floods have also claimed deaths.

The apocalyptic storms of October 16, 1913, and of October 25, 1979, reaped a number of innocent victims. Raging waters in 1913 swept two young boys, Carmelo Baldacchino and Ġużeppi Bugeja, to their deaths in Għajn Dwieli tunnel, Cottonera, and the fury of nature ended the lives of four persons in Salina, Attard, Marsa and Qormi in 1979.

A humble memorial to the children killed by the 1913 floods in Cottonera.

A postcard showing the bodies of the children Carmelo Baldacchino and Ġużeppi Bugeja drowned by the floods of October 16, 1913, in the Għajn Dwieli tunnel.

Not frequently, floods have also claimed deaths

Another unprecedented storm, on October 11, 1982, killed another four persons, two in Paola, one in Ħamrun and one in Sliema.

Part of the havoc left behind by the 1979 floods in Qormi.

Several attempts have been made over the years to control the effects of flooding, mostly endemic in the Msida area, and with varying degrees of success. 

A 1951 flood in Msida

In 1989, the authorities started putting in place more radical measures, which generally resulted in an improvement in the recurrent crises. 

Flooding in the Għajn tal-Ħasselin area, Msida

Other strategic relief measures were initiated earlier this century through the construction of a wide network of underground tunnels, bridges and ducting, a faster and more widespread infrastructure to cope with stormwater drainage.

Another post-war flood in Valley Road, Birkirkara

Some of the flooding disasters turned into commercial opportunities for postcard publishers.

To be sure, not many and quite rare productions are known, some of which I am illustrating here. If readers know of more photographs, they are welcome to share them with me.

Post-war flooding near the Msida roundabout

Most images from the author’s collections

Pre-war postcard of flooding in Msida