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In addition, although the winters in the UK are much warmer than those at the same latitude in China due to the warm currents of the North Atlantic, the coldest month of February, the minimum temperature is also close to freezing, and the daily temperature difference in the oceanic climate is very small, even on a sunny day, it is usually five or six degrees Celsius, which means that the maximum temperature in a day is only seven or eight degrees Celsius.

In such low temperatures, those Britons, who were not particularly healthy, could easily freeze to death in a short period of time if they could not keep warm after being soaked in the floodwaters. In the case of a flood (and a sudden flood without warning), it is difficult to start a fire if there is no rescue, because there is water everywhere, and it is good to be able to escape to the roof in time to save people's lives, where is the time to bring coal, firewood and other combustibles before they are wet? As for electrical appliances, even if there is no electricity to kill people in the flood, they have long been unusable due to a large-scale power outage caused by a short circuit

Even if they do not freeze to death, it is inevitable that they will get sick if they are soaked in water for a long time at such a low temperature, and if the people trapped in the disaster area do not receive timely and effective rescue, the proportion of people who die due to the spread of the epidemic will inevitably be very high.

The bigger problem is that the damage caused by the floods is not just about flooding farmland and buildings, but also causing great difficulties for the British government to rescue people by destroying bridges, destroying railways and roads, and disrupting large areas of the United Kingdom. Moreover, since the Luftwaffe even did such a thing as blowing up the dam, there would no longer be any bottom line, and those rescuers were also attacked by the Luftwaffe, not only suffered heavy casualties, but also greatly disrupted the rescue work, which further increased the damage from the flood. In addition, the blockage of communications had a direct impact on the supply of British troops, starting with the most combat-charged air defense units, which allowed Luftwaffe aircraft to bomb more indiscriminately, creating a terrible vicious circle. Perhaps it was Yujian who arrived at these terrible scenes. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who has always been strong, also fainted on the spot after receiving an urgent report

But. London, the capital of Churchill's country at the time, was located on the lower reaches of the Thames River, and the floodwaters went directly into the sea, adding London as a modern metropolis. The sewer system is quite perfect. So the losses are not very large. But the damage to Britain's agricultural areas and inland cities is staggering.

Winter wheat is the main food crop in the UK, and although it is a dry crop, it is dormant due to winter. The ability to resist floods is still relatively strong, but it also depends on what kind of flood it is, and the flood impact caused by the collapse and discharge of the reservoir is extremely strong, which can cause direct damage to the fields themselves, not to mention the crops in the fields. Moreover, the amount of water in this flood is too large, even compared with the Huayuankou embankment during the Anti-Japanese War in history, it is many times larger, and many places once the water was several meters deep, and even submerged several floors of buildings, not to mention winter wheat, even rice (rice soaked in too deep water, too long, it will also die. It may not be enough to eat. Moreover, after being flooded for a long time, the probability of disease will increase greatly even if the winter wheat plants are not dead at that time, so it is possible to reduce the yield of winter wheat and other crops in Britain in 1942 or even to lose the harvest in a large area.

This leads to another problem, British agriculture is highly mechanized, which is a good thing under normal circumstances, but now that there is a catastrophe, it is not easy for the vast and sparsely populated countryside to save itself. After all, although agricultural machinery saves manpower, it needs energy to drive, but now that the land transportation in the UK is paralyzed in a large area, where can it provide timely and sufficient electricity and fuel? In agricultural production, it is very important to "not miss the agricultural time", if it is too late, it is completely meaningless, and because of the high latitude and lack of sunlight in the United Kingdom, only one crop can be planted a year, and if it is too late to replant, it means that there will be no grain harvest for the whole year

This disaster has also caused many people to think deeply, advanced technology continues to improve human life, but also makes human beings more vulnerable to some sudden disasters (such as the heavy snowstorm back then, without modern transportation, it would not have caused much harm). This is the same as the more advanced science and technology, the greater the damage of war, forming two dead knots. It's just that the development of human society in modern times has become inseparable from advanced science, and if you want to avoid the outbreak of these two hidden dangers, you can only prepare disaster prevention work in advance and try your best to maintain the peace of Shijie

Britain's industry suffered less direct damage from floods than agricultural areas, as most of it was concentrated in coastal cities, but even those cities that were not damaged by floods because of their geographical location suffered a significant impact on industrial production. The reasons for this are: first, the domestic transportation in the UK has been seriously damaged, resulting in the raw materials needed by many factories cannot be transported in, and the products produced cannot be transported; Second, the need for disaster relief occupies the already greatly reduced available capacity, making it more difficult for raw materials to come in and products to get out; Third, Britain itself lacks resources, except for a few minerals such as coal and iron ore, most kinds of industrial raw materials need to be imported to varying degrees, and because domestic agriculture has been hit hard, Britain must import much more grain than before to survive the difficult period, which will undoubtedly occupy the maritime capacity of transporting industrial raw materials, and the total supply of raw materials is seriously insufficient, and Britain's domestic industrial production will naturally not be able to start work at full strength

According to the British government's rough estimates, the Luftwaffe's bombing of the dam in late February 1941 and the continuous high-intensity bombing for more than a month followed caused direct economic losses to Britain more than $70 billion, and indirect economic losses amounted to more than $400 billion. Britain's total industrial output plummeted to 50% of its 1941 level in 1942, and 20% of its industrial capacity was permanently lost, partly because factories were destroyed, and even more because there were not enough workers to get to work; Britain's total agricultural output in 1942 was only 40% of the previous year's, and the total grain output was less than one-third of that in 1941, and even with the full support of the United States, Britain's food supply gap in 1942 still exceeded 2 million tons, resulting in widespread famine and malnutrition; In 1942, more than 1.14 million people died directly from floods and bombings, and from epidemics and famines (not too many died of starvation, but many died of malnutrition and disease, mainly the elderly, infants and young children). It is difficult to accurately count the number of people, but it should be estimated that there should be no less than 4 million after the war, because the British Isles, which had a population of 47 million before the outbreak of World War II, had a population of less than 40 million by the end of World War II (to be continued......