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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Most images from the author’s collections
