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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

15. The 1931 Central China Flooding Was a Catastrophe That Killed Millions

The Shanghai Bund in 1930, with the river to the right. Wikimedia

Things took a turn for the horrific in central China in 1931. Between snow and ice melt, heavy rains, and a seemingly ceaseless sequence of cyclones, the Yangtze and Huai rivers underwent disastrous flooding. Downstream, the waters rose nearly 6 feet above the Shanghai Bund – the waterfront area in the city’s center. Upstream, in the region of Wuhan, the water level rose an incredible 53 feet above the yearly average. Significant but relatively less disastrous flooding also occurred in the Yellow River basin and along China’s Grand Canal.

Displaced victims of the 1931 China floods. China Dialogue

Farmlands and housing along the rivers were devastated. 15% of the rice and wheat crops were destroyed, in a country that had little margin to spare. 53 million people were impacted, and casualties were enormous. About 150,000 people were directly drowned, while millions more died from starvation and in the subsequent diseases and epidemics. All in all, up to 4 million people perished, making the 1931 China Floods history’s deadliest natural disaster.

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.