Is that the entire planet, or 'the whole earth' from the narrators perspective?Of course it has. A lot of the uncomfortable passages promoting slavery, genocide and rape, for example, have been dropped. So much for God's word...
The whole earth was affected, "And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep". I'm guessing tens of millions, but you can correct me on that.
The flood "story" is very similar to old Babylonian accounts of a Great Flood, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. It predates the earliest Old Testament accounts by more than a thousand years. Funny how stories which predate the bible often appear.
I've read the Gilgamesh epic and it's a natural evolution for the way stories are retold for generations, becoming entwined with each culture that absorbs them. If you ever get time, have a listen to Irving Finkel talk about the Flood and his demonstration of how the Ark could've been built according to the specifications found in the Bible.
