This survey offers a wealth of information for economic historians. Treaty port-based periodicals such as Shanghai’s Zhongyang ribao and Shenghuo and Tianjin’s Da gongbao sent journalists to investigate conditions in the flood zone . [7] William Barrett, The Red Lacquered Gate: The Early Days of the Columban Fathers and the Courage of its Founder Fr. 1 Comment As another part of our series on historic floods, here we look at the devastating floods that hit central China in 1931, one of which hit the Yangtze River with huge loss of life, and that particular flood is thought to be one of the deadliest floods of modern times. [37] Pietz, Engineering the State, pp. In 1931, the greatest natural disaster ever recorded happened in China. The flood also inspired a range of cultural reactions. Even in a country like Republican China, where refugee crises were an all too familiar occurrence, the scale of displacement caused by the flood was exceptional. Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images An additional area of 12,500 km2 was inundated but less seriously affected. Wuhan tongshi: Minguo juan (xia) (A Comprehensive History of Wuhan: The Republican Period (Part Two) (Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe, 2006). by Peiwei Zheng and Guiqing Liu (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1996). Micah Muscolino. Wu Changzhe and Wu Liande. [34] In another camp in Jiangxi, 2,476 of the 20,249 refugees died in just three months, constituting an annual mortality rate of 48.9%. Wuhan wenshi ziliao (Wuhan Literary and Historical Materials). (Accessed at www.archive.org). 201-205. This coincidence led to widespread discontent afterward, as many locals linked the disaster to the anger of Dragon King, a rainmaking deity. Haigang jianyi guanli chu baogao shu (Report of the Maritime Quarantine Office). When the city itself was inundated in the early summer and after a catastrophic dike failure at just before 6:00 AM on July 27,[20]:270 around 782,189 urban citizens and rural refugees were left homeless. China floods or Yellow River floods is considered as one of the worst floods in the history of modern China. Central China flood, 1931. [11] The total economic losses were equal to one and a half year’s net income per family. (Famine and Peasant Crisis Survival – The Middle Yangzi Region in the 1930s)” Huaihua xueyuan xuebao 7 (2006 ). [16], The flood destroyed huge amounts of housing and farmland. Clubb, Communism in China, p.105. Steve Harnsberger, the grandson of Thomas Harnsberger, wrote in 2007, "The 1931 flood killed 15 times the number of people lost in the Indonesian tsunamis of December 2004, and yet scarcely a word has been written of it. Shui (Water). It is impossible to provide an accurate estimate for the death toll caused by the 1931 Yangzi-Huai Flood. In Uneasy Encounters, Iris Borowy highlights the efforts made by the League of Nations to assist in the medical response to the disaster. [11][12], At the time the government estimated that 25 million people had been affected by the flood. A documentary on uncovering the history of the 1931 Great Flood in, This page was last edited on 9 December 2020, at 17:46. Nongmin jiaoyu Across the disaster zone an estimated 40% of the affected population were forced to leave their homes. 65-68; Qiu Huafei, “1931 nian Zhong-Mei xiaomai jiekuan deshi yanjiu (A Study of the 1931 Sino-American Wheat Loan Issue)” Jianghai xuekan, no. The 1931 China floods, or the 1931 Yangtze–Huai River floods, were a series of floods that occurred from June to August 1931 in the Republic of China, hitting major cities such as Wuhan, Nanjing and beyond, which eventually culminated into a dike breach along Lake Gaoyou on August 25, 1931. [27] Eventually, the NFRC managed to negotiate a number of wheat and flour loans from the US government. 230,000: 1975 Banqiao Dam failure: 1975 4. His forthcoming monograph provides an environmental and social history of the disaster. Pi Mingxiu eds. [35] To an extent these staggeringly high death tolls were an inevitable consequence of widespread population displacement. Many rural communities were homeless and stranded without food, and without any way for aid to reach them. At that time no one knew whether the water would subside or rise even higher. Glantz, Michael H (2003). The Great Flood of 1931 - China Ariel view of the flood: The deadliest natural disaster ever recorded occurred through the winter, spring, and summer of 1931 in central China. [29], As part of an anti-superstition campaign by the Kuomintang Government, a Dragon King Temple was demolished in Wuhan shortly before the flood hit. Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe, 1994. [27] The commission employed a range of Chinese and foreign experts, including figures such as famous epidemiologist Wu Liande, health minister Liu Ruiheng, public health worker John Grant, and hydraulic engineer Oliver Todd. [41] Although such responses were both socially stigmatised and legally prohibited, they helped refugees to survive a period of acute deprivation. Heavy rainfall has led to severe flooding in much of southern China. A motion picture entitled Raging Torrent (Kuangliu) describing fictional events during the flood in Hubei was filmed in the aftermath of the disaster. In 1931 Central China experienced a devastating flood that inundated an area equivalent in size of England and half of Scotland, affected the lives of an estimated 52 million people, and killed as many as 2 million. [16] Famine conditions in conflict zones became so acute that some people began to engage in cannibalism.[17]. It also secured the assistance of the League of Nations. In this manner, the flood not only led to an acute period of hunger but also further entrenched long-term destitution and inequality. Wu Jiping. [20]:269–270 Large numbers gathered on flood islands throughout the city, with 30,000 sheltering on a railway embankment in central Hankou. Alley, Rewi. The Yangtze River, the longest river in Asia, also is one of the world’s major waterways. Outside China, the flood has received relatively little attention. Time Magazine Yet it was not the only response to the disaster. (Herafter NFRC). Rowe, William T. Crimson Rain: Seven Centuries of Violence in a Chinese County. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Central China floods of 1931 Map of Nanjing China Estimates of the total death toll range from 145,000 to between 3.7 million and 4 million. This is based upon a much more systematic attempt to quantify the death toll made by Chinese historians, who used a range of contemporary reports and government statistics. “Xinyang yu Quanzheng: 1931 nian Gaoyou ‘Da Chenghuang’ Fengchao zhi Yanjiu. London: Routledge, 2002. “Difang bizhi, shizheng pianshi yu yijiusanyi nian Hankou da shuizai (Dike Mismanagement, Municipal Government Mistakes and the 1931 Hankou Flood).” Renwen luncong, Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshi), 2008. [8] In an average year the Yangzi basin could expect two cyclonic storms; in 1931 there were seven in July alone. [42] In Zhongguo wusheng dianying juben (Scripts of Chinese silent films), ed. Unfortunately the physical impact of the flood was so intense that even relatively strong urban dyke networks were compromised. On August 18, 1931, the Yangtze River in China peaks during a horrible flood that kills 3.7 million people directly and indirectly over the next several months. The worst period of flooding was from the period July to November in the year 1931. "[2] The official report found 140,000 drowned[3] and claims that "2 million people died during the flood, having drowned or died from lack of food". Song Jie. “Save life!”: Chinese newspaper cartoon from 1931. Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe, 1989. When the Yangzi experienced high levels of precipitation in 1935 many of the dykes in the region collapsed once again, exposing the beleaguered population of the region to another catastrophic flood.[38]. Yellow River flood, 1938-47. Eventually, the government managed to secure a large loan of wheat and flour from the United States. Over 100,000 people were killed in the immediate floods, but the survivors had problems of their own. Among the most recent major flood events are those of 1870, 1931, 1954, 1998, and 2010.. Edward Galvin (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 265. “Possible influence of ENSO on annual maximum streamflow of the Yangtze River, China.” Journal of Hydrology 333 (2007): 265– 274. Excessive deforestation, wetland reclamation, and the over-extension of river dyke networks transformed regular flood pulses, which were an integral feature of the fluvial ecosystem, into destructive inundations, which wrought chaos upon human communities. Li Qin. [26] Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient (USA: Tess Press, 2004 [1935]), pp.137-154. The Hubei Provincial Government published a hagiographic study entitled The Party Leads the People to Victory over the Flood (Dang lingdao renmin zhanshenle hongshui), which included photographs, propaganda cartoons, and oral testimony designed to highlight the distinctions between the bitter past in 1931 and sweet present during the 1954 floods. Beyond these broader analyses, local gazetteers provide detailed descriptions of how the disaster unfolded in particular regions, whilst literary and historical materials (wenshi ziliao) offer oral history accounts of the flood, which have been recorded by Chinese scholars since the 1980s. Great Leap famine, 1958-62 (Urban Perspective) Lauri Paltemaa. by Stuart R. Schram (Hong Kong: Chinese University press, 1985). [29] The project was restarted in the 1980s, and the hydroelectric Three Gorges Dam began full operation in 2012, becoming the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity. 100,000+ St. Felix's Flood, storm surge Holy Roman Empire: 1530 6. At the time of the floods, China was attacking itself. [10] Impoverished communities living in substandard housing were disproportionately vulnerable to these immediate disaster risks. The first is the figure of 140,000 fatalities which has been reproduced in some English language studies of the period. 62-69. The combined ecological and economic impacts of the disaster caused many areas to descend into famine. : Harvard University Press, 1965). Tu Wangchang. North China famine, 1920-21. They sit stoically awaiting death. “The Trend and Fluctuation of Historical Floods in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River.” Wuhan University of Natural Sciences 8 (2003): 91-94. History focused instead on other disasters that year. In addition to the Chinese language press, newspapers such as the Shanghai-based British-owned North China Herald provided detailed reports on the flood. These storms dumped the equivalent of one and a half times the average annual volume of precipitation in a single month. The eight most seriously affected provinces were Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Henan and Shandong. Others employed more desperate strategies, begging, stealing, and engaging in prostitution. Edmund Clubb, “The Floods of China, a National Disaster,” Journal of Geography 31 (January/December 1932): 205-206. Vol. Throughout the second millennium CE, the Middle Yangzi province of Hubei witnessed a repetitive pattern of growth and collapse, described by Pierre-Étienne Will as a “hydraulic cycle.”[4] Later Peter Perdue identified a similar developmental pattern in neighbouring Hunan during the Ming and Qing dynasties. When floodwater coursed into the Middle Yangzi city of Wuhan, an estimated 400,000 people were left homeless. The 1931 flood produced a vast range of Chinese and English language source material. Hubei sheng yijiusanyi nian shuizai dang’an xuanbian (Selected documents relating to the 1931 flood in Hubei Province). [2] On the effect of climate on flooding see Zhang Qiang, Marco Gemmer and Chen Jiaqi , “Climate Changes and Flood/Drought Risk in the Yangtze Delta, China, During the Past Millennium,” Quaternary International 176-177 (2008): pp. Hubei shengzhi (Gazetteer of Hubei Province). Fang Choumei had explored how a breakdown in hydraulic governance under the Guomindang left Wuhan vulnerable to inundation. Around a tenth of the Chinese population was affected; over two million people died, either by drowning or by the subsequent famine and epidemics. [24] As the scale of the disaster became apparent, the government established the National Flood Relief Commission (NFRC) under the auspices Song Ziwen (T.V. Two Decades in China. Large Images: July 18, 2007 (3.43 MB JPG) ; May 10, 2007 (2.18 MB JPG) ; Unusually heavy summer rains led to widespread flooding across central China in June and July 2007. Yan Zhongwei, Ye Duzheng, and Wang Cun. The Yangtze and it's tributary system is also among the most flood-prone regions in the world, with historic floods that killed millions of Chinese. Hongan Xianzhi (Gazetteer of Hongan County). In 1931 Central China experienced a devastating flood that inundated an area equivalent in size of England and half of Scotland, affected the lives of an estimated 52 million people, and killed as many as 2 million. “Wuhan Longwang Miao de bianqian (The Transformation of Wuhan’s Dragin King Temple)” Hubei wenshi 3 (2003). Those who retained access to food or credit were able to acquire the assets of their poorer neighbours at punishingly low crisis terms. 2. The Central China Flood of 1931 extended over the whole of the Yangtse Valley and inundated 70,000 square miles and 8.5 million acres of farmland. “Ping 1931 nian Jiang-Huai shuizai jiuji zhong de Meimai jiekuan (The role of the US Wheat Loan in the 1931 Yangzi-Huai Flood Relief Effort).” Journal of Shandong Normal University 56, no. This was actually an estimate of the number of people drowned, which did not account for o… “Transformation of the Water Regime: State, Society and Ecology of the Jianghan Plain in Late Imperial and Modern China.” Unpublished Thesis. Deng Tuo [Original published under the name Deng Yunte]. Wu Yijin, William A. Gough, Jiang Tong, Wang Xuelei, and Jin Weibin. 1 (June 2006): 66-108. Coping with Calamity: Environmental Change and Peasant Response in Central China, 1736-1949. Pierre Fuller. Surprisingly, few historians have referred to the most reliable and systemic attempt to quantify the death toll at the time, which was published in The 1931 Flood: An Economic Survey. North China famine, 1876-79. Wuhan: Wuhan fangxun zhihuibu bangongshi, 1986. It prevented relief agencies from distributing grain throughout the flood zone and delayed agricultural recovery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. [39] The Chinese Recorder, November, 1932: 667 – 680; Zhang Bo, “Lun zhengfu zai zaihuang jiuji zhong de zuoyong – yi Wuhan 1931 nian shuizai wei ge’an de kaocha (An Examination of the Effectiveness of Government Disaster Relief – Using the Wuhan flood 1931 as a Case Study).” Jianghan Tribune, December 2006: pp.87-90. The first is the figure of 140,000 fatalities which has been reproduced in some English language studies of the period. [8] The water flowing through the Yangtze reached its highest level since record-keeping began in the mid-nineteenth century. "[26], The 1931 flood was one of the first major tests for the Kuomintang Government. In 1931, a 4-month long flood disaster killed 3.7 Million people and displaced another 14 Million. North to the Orient. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007. The American author, and later Nobel laureate, Pearl Buck wrote a series of short stories about the flood that were read on the wireless in the US in order to inspire charitable donations. [28] In the wake of the disaster, the government set up organizations such as the Huai River Conservancy Commission to address flood problems. The North China Herald [14] Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). As a response, prominent officials, including He Baohua, mayor of Wuhan, and Xia Douyin, then the local garrison commander and later governor of Hubei Province, held ritual ceremonies and kowtowed to the deity. Rivers throughout the country rose onto their plains, inundating an area the size of England and half of Scotland combined. Wang Lin. [4] A cholera epidemic in the subsequent year, from May 1932, was officially reported to have 31,974 deaths and 100,666 cases. 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