水灾
shuǐ zāi · HSK 5
flood
🌊 水 (water) + 灾 (disaster) = water-disaster = flood
水 means water and 灾 means disaster or calamity. The compound 水灾 literally reads water-disaster, the standard Chinese term for a flood or flood-damage event.
水 — pictograph of flowing water
水 is a pictograph depicting a stream of flowing water, with the central line representing the main current and the side strokes showing splashing droplets or ripples. In oracle bone script it was drawn even more clearly as a wavy vertical line with branches. It retains its original meaning of 'water' and also serves as a radical, often appearing in the compressed form 氵.
灾 — roof 宀 + fire 火
灾 is an associative compound showing fire (火) under a roof (宀), depicting a house on fire — the original meaning of 'disaster' or 'calamity'. An older variant 災 added 巛 (flooding water) above 火, combining flood and fire as twin disasters. The modern simplified form keeps just the house-fire image.