and career path that can help you find the school that's right for you. River Warning: The expansive Yellow River in China is a gateway to China's economy and its people's survival. flashcard set{{course.flashcardSetCoun > 1 ? The infants in arms and the children under four years of age were, of course, the first to succumb.”. In the foreword of their report, the relief commission seem keen to establish the amount of work they had done. Up to 4 million people had died, the economy was completely ruined, and China's citizens were, understandably, furious with their government. This impacted the flood relief commission’s attempts to raise funds through bonds, as the invasion caused the bond market to collapse. Many rural communities were homeless and stranded without food, and without any way for aid to reach them. It was one of the most deadly natural disasters ever recorded. Learn more about its history. These floods also reawakened the dream of building a massive hydroelectric power plant called Three Gorges Dam over the Yangtze River. In some cases, the situation was so bad that people resorted to cannibalism, eating the dead just to survive. | 9 This article explores popular religious conceptualizations of the environment and disasters in early twentieth-century China. The Yangtze River, The Yellow River, and the Huai River. It is true that every year it swelled with spring flood as it did now. However, Mao wasn't able to get the dam built either. In 1931, China had 7 cyclones during July alone. South China Morning Post 8,832 views Mortality: 2 Million. The small sampan driven by oar or pole seemed to be the only possible means of transportation in this vast area. The flooding was so bad that the ground was still underwater when fall arrived, which meant that farmers couldn't even plant crops for the next year. Quiz & Worksheet - 1931 Yellow River Floods, Over 83,000 lessons in all major subjects, {{courseNav.course.mDynamicIntFields.lessonCount}}, Weathering: Definition, Types, Causes & Rates, What is Coastal Erosion? courses that prepare you to earn Then, heavy snowstorms occurred during the winter of the late 1930s. Nine cyclones were reported in July 1931 alone. The floods came from not one river, but three rivers. China had to take out loans from other countries, like the United States, but did not know if it could repay those loans. Rivers flood. The government tried to create jobs for the refugees by hiring them to rebuild roads and dams, but the success of these projects was limited. In 1944, an American civil engineer surveyed the area and drew up a new plan; a number of Chinese engineers went to the US for training, and some initial work was done – but it was halted due to the resumption of hostilities in the Chinese Civil War. Visit the ISEB Common Entrance Exam at 13+ Geography: Study Guide & Test Prep page to learn more. Advances for farm rehabilitation were granted to 360,000 farmers. The amount of earthwork done by this army of labourers would have built a dyke, two metres high and two metres thick, long enough to encircle the earth at the equator.”. In 1954, the Yangtze flooded again; this time with an estimated death toll of 33,000. To make matters worse, the government of China was so disorganized and weak from the wars of the last decades, that they couldn't gather together the resources and people needed to save the stranded villages. This was the situation in many places affected by the 1931 floods. On all sides heartbroken people were quietly dying of starvation; all were undernourished and dying from exposure and in a short time malaria, dysentery, typhoid, cholera and smallpox spread like a prairie fire from camp to camp and took their terrible toll. Most of the refugees were located on hills in the Wuhan area; on the Black Hill in Hanyang there were 60,000. An error occurred trying to load this video. The 1931 China floods were one of the worst natural disasters in history. According to Jonathan Spence (The Search for Modern China, p.434) it flooded an area the size of New York state. Some 2,800,000 were employed on labour projects. Not sure what college you want to attend yet? According to Chris Courtney in “The Nature of Disaster in China”, the Great Jingjiang Dyke failed in early summer, for the first time in sixty years; the water that flowed through its breaches went on to compromise 90 per cent of the dykes on the Jianghan Plain. Explain why it was all flood get your degree, Centripetal & Centrifugal Forces in Geopolitics, are... That it needs constant maintenance, which were overwhelmed by Extreme weather in 1931, China 7! 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