Flood disaster on the Yellow River in 1887

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The flood disaster on the Yellow River in 1887 occurred on September 28, 1887 on the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River and is considered to be one of the worst flood disasters since records began. Estimates of the number of victims fluctuate between 900,000 and two million dead because of the extremely poor source situation.

In order to limit the frequent flooding of the Yellow River, dams were built early on to make the fertile river valley usable for agriculture. The large amounts of mud that the Yellow River carried with it could no longer be carried to the estuary without appropriate measures in the case of dams and were deposited on the river bed in front of the dams. As a result, the water level continued to rise and put more and more stress on the dams. Heavy rains in the upper reaches of the river in autumn 1887 caused a large tidal wave, which may have been exacerbated by dam bursts in central China. In the flat and already densely populated estuary area, the tidal wave flooded an area of ​​more than 15,000 km² and made several million people homeless. Serious epidemics broke out in the flooded regions, probably killing as many people as the flood itself.

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