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Floods, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes: History’s Most Consequential Natural Catastrophes

Khalid Elhassan December 22, 2024 15 min

Catastrophe - The Thera Eruption — The Thera Eruption. Sci Tech Daily

4. A Truly Epic Flood

Catastrophe - Aftermath of the 1887 Yellow River Flood — Aftermath of the 1887 Yellow River Flood. Alchetron

China in 1887 was ruled by a hapless and wholly inept imperial government on its last legs. It lacked both the organizational skills and the resources for the massive rescue, recovery, and rebuilding effort required to deal with the disaster. Nonetheless, Chinese farmers were familiar with the routines of dike repair. They came together by the hundreds of thousands, used whatever tools they could lay their hands on, and their bare hands when tools were unavailable, to repair the dikes before the next rainy season. It was not until early 1889 that the dikes were finally closed. By then, between drowning, diseases, and famine, the Yellow River flood had killed over 900,000 people.

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.