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20th Century’s Deadliest Disasters

Khalid Elhassan October 26, 2020 32 min

1976 Tangshan earthquake - Tangshan — A bridge destroyed by the Tangshan Earthquake. China Underground

16. A Tragic Coming Together of Unusual Weather Phenomena at the Worst Possible Time

Wuhan during the 1931 Central China Floods. China Dialogue

The 1931 Central China Flooding, history’s worst natural disaster, was caused by a perfect storm of extreme weather phenomenon, all coming together at the worst possible time. It began with a severe drought that hit China from 1928 to 1930. That was followed by an exceptionally severe winter in 1930. It deposited unusually massive amounts of snow and ice in the mountainous areas upstream from the Yangtze and Huai rivers.

Flood victims in August, 1931. Bundesarchiv Bild

In the early spring of 1931, all that snow and ice melted, and flowed downstream into the Yangtze and Huai rivers. It reached the middle Yangtze just as the region was experiencing exceptionally heavy spring rains. Things were made worse still by an unusually high number of cyclones. On average, the region experiences two cyclones a year. In 1931, it was hit by nine cyclones. All of those factors came together to cause a catastrophe.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.