For many centuries, natural disasters of huge proportions, which caused the destruction of cities and states, shook different cultures and civilizations. The history of China alone has seen terrible catastrophes in its lifetime that led to the death of millions.
There are many criteria for assessing the most terrible cataclysms, be it human losses, financial costs, damage to nature, damage to infrastructure, and many others. That is why any attempt to describe one misfortune as more destructive than another will be subjective.
The natural disasters described below have resulted in dire consequences and collectively have claimed the lives of more than one hundred million people.
The deadliest earthquake in history
In July 1201, one of the most powerful earthquakes in history occurred in Egypt and Syria. Its epicenter was in southwestern Syria, but seismic waves reached Anatolia, Sicily, Mesopotamia and Upper Egypt. The number of victims of this devastating earthquake exceeds one million. In the eastern Mediterranean, almost every city in the Middle East fell victim to the Syrian concussion. By today's standards, the Syrian earthquake was nearly 8 on the Richter scale. Geologists believe that the cause of the cataclysm is a rift that appeared at the bottom of the Dead Sea.
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Black Death
The bubonic plague pandemic, which covered almost all of Europe in the Middle Ages, caused the death of almost a third of the population of this part of the world. In the period from 1346 to 1353, Asia, Europe, North Africa and even Greenland became a platform for the spread of bubonic plague - an extremely serious infectious disease that first infects the lymph nodes and then the lungs.
The first hotbed of infection was the Gobi Desert, from where the plague spread to China and India, and then the Mongol invaders spread it throughout Asia. After that, the plague came to Europe, where, due to poor hygiene, dense population and disgusting sanitary conditions, it spread with great speed, killing entire cities. According to historians, as a result of the bubonic plague pandemic in the middle of the 14th century, about 60 million people died in infected regions.
Bengal famine
As a result of the campaign of the East India Company, Bengal was conquered - a large region that is today divided between India and the state of Bangladesh. The British not only captured all the region's treasures, but also doubled taxation. Only those who were paid by the British to collect those taxes could survive under such conditions. The peasants, who had nowhere to go, gave their last belongings.
After the conquest in Bengal, the harvest became smaller, because there was no one to work in the fields - many people died, and those who did not want to work for free went into the jungle. After a lack of harvests, a drought set in, resulting in widespread famine in Bengal. The victims of inadequate policy and environmental conditions were about ten million dead people.
Irish potato famine
The famine in Ireland claimed the lives of nearly a million of the island's inhabitants, and also led to the fact that more than two million left their homes and went to the United States, England and other countries. The Irish already lived very poorly due to the fact that the colonialists from England did not recognize their Catholic faith. Most of the peasants counted only on potatoes as food for themselves and for animals.
In 1845, the potato crop was almost completely damaged by the brown blight rot, which also affected the seeds of the following year. This led to the fact that for three years there was no food, no money, no opportunity to sow clean potatoes. Aid from the Crown was extremely small, and the whole of Ireland suffered from famine.
Chinese drought
Over the centuries, the people of China have experienced some of the deadliest natural disasters for centuries, often resulting in famine. Between 1876 and 1879, a severe drought resulted in the drying up of the main water sources and in nine provinces of China, agriculture was reduced to zero.
For three years, there has been no rainfall on the territory of central China. Naturally, this led to one of the worst mass disasters in the history of the world. Drought and famine killed between 10 and 13 million people.
"Spanish flu", or flu pandemic
For 18 months from 1918 to 1919, the largest flu epidemic overtook even the First World War in the number of victims. According to rough estimates, almost 30% of the world's population was infected and 5% of the world's population died as a result of complications. These numbers (from 60 to 100 million deaths) make the "Spanish flu" one of the worst epidemics in human history.
Young children, poor people, old people and people with various diseases have especially suffered from the disease. However, adults, healthy people also suffered and died from the Spanish flu, which is not typical for the flu. In India alone, the flu has killed about 13 million people.
The great China flood
After a terrible drought that devastated central China from 1928 to 1930, a lot of snow fell in the mountains and rivers filled up in spring. However, in late spring and summer, China was suddenly swept by a torrent of torrential rains, which practically did not stop. All this led to the fact that the three largest rivers - the Yangtze, Yellow and Huaihe - overflowed their banks and destroyed the dams holding them back.
The water that poured into the capital of that time, Nanjing, completely destroyed the city, drowning about 200 thousand peacefully sleeping Chinese. In the days that followed, millions died, and many more suffered. The water flooded the rice paddies, completely destroying all the crops the hungry residents had hoped for. As a result, famine, cholera, typhoid, as well as infanticide and cannibalism caused by the flood, led to the death of about 4 million people.
Great Chinese Famine
In China, the period from 1959 to 1961 is called the "three black years" because natural disasters and ill-conceived social policies aimed at industrializing the country led to the death of 15 to 35 million people.
Today it is difficult to call famine in China an exclusively natural disaster, but it has not been without cataclysms. In 1959, due to heavy rainfall, the Yellow River flooded, destroying many crops and killing two million people, and in 1960 a drought set in, leading to the loss of almost half of the wheat crop.
In addition, the government pursued a policy aimed at increasing production, which in fact only worsened the situation. As a result, people were left completely without food.
African drought
Between 1981 and 1984, the African continent - 20 distinct nations and regions - was hit hard by drought, which hit livestock especially hard. Left without a crop and animals that can be bred and hunted, people began to die in huge numbers - 20 thousand people a month. Before the arrival of humanitarian aid from other countries, more than a million people died in Africa.
Famine in North Korea
As a result of the difficult economic situation due to the cessation of international trade, the DPRK government could not effectively cope with the natural disasters that hit the country in 1995-1999. During this period, North Korea experienced both drought and floods, each of which deprived the population of the crops they needed to feed. It is difficult to trust official data, but experts suggest that as a result of natural disasters and the destructive policies of the government, the DPRK has lost from one hundred thousand to three million of its citizens.
Hope Chikanchi