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Historic Disasters That Were Way Worse Than People Think

Khalid Elhassan April 6, 2020 33 min

Yellow River - 1887 Yellow River flood — 1887 Yellow River Flood. Hakai Magazine

25. Vulnerable Shaanxi

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Shaanxi, whose top fell in the 1556 earthquake. My Veiling

China’s Loess Region, and Shaanxi Province therein, in particular, are highly susceptible to warping from tectonic plate pressures. Lying smack dab in the middle of historic China, Shaanxi and the surrounding region are constantly squeezed by the tectonic plates converging on the country.

That creates faults that lend themselves to energetic seismic activity. In other words, when the pressure builds up from tectonic plates pressing in on the one atop which China rests, it sometimes gets released hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away in Shaanxi, in the form of major earthquakes.

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.