BREACH, a break or rupture in a fence or embankment. Inundations of lands are frequently owing to breaches in dikes or sea-banks. Dagenham breach is well known: it occurred in 1707, by a failure of the Thames wall during a very high tide. The force with which the water burst in upon the neighbouring level tore a channel of a hundred yards wide, and in some places twenty feet deep, by which a multitude of trees that had been buried for ages were laid bare.