22. Hundreds of Thousands Killed, Millions Injured and Made Homeless
In many counties within the Shaanxi Earthquake’s zone of destruction, over 60% of the population was killed outright. Many of the rest were injured, and all the survivors were left without shelter. Fatalities were particularly high because most of the region’s population, taking advantage of the soft loess soil, had built their homes out of earth shelters known as yaodongs – a form of artificial cave carved out of hillsides.
Such houses have the advantage of being cool in the summer and warm in the winter. However, they have the disadvantage of being particularly vulnerable to seismic activity. When the earthquake struck, they collapsed, with not only the weight of a roof collapsing upon the inhabitants, but an entire hillside falling atop and burying entire communities. When it was over, around 830,000 had been killed, and millions more were injured and/ or made homeless. That made the 1556 Shaanxi Earthquake the most tragic earthquake ever, and the third-worst natural disaster in history, exceeded only by the 1887 Yellow River Flood and the 1931 China Floods.
