At Babel it is judgment by dispersion.
God promised that he would not destroy sinners in that fashion again, this was to be an age of grace and patience and forbearance and so rather than judgment by destruction as with the flood, this is judgment by dispersion.
He scatters them over the whole earth and changes their language."
Charles Spurgeon
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth:
Genesis 11:8