21. The Incompetence of the Chinese Government Made the 1887 Yellow River Flood Even More Tragic
When the Yellow River’s flood finally receded, survivors were left with loess mud as far as the eye could see, up to eight feet deep. As it dried out, the region looked more like the Sahara Desert than the green and fertile agricultural plain it had been just a few days earlier. What made things even more tragic was that China in 1887 was ruled by a hapless and wholly inept imperial government on its last legs. It lacked both the organizational skills and resources for the massive rescue, recovery and rebuilding effort necessary to restore things to normal.
Nonetheless, the farmers were familiar with the routines of dike repair, and they came together by the hundreds of thousands. They used whatever tools they could lay their hands on, and their bare hands when tools were unavailable, to repair the dikes before the next rainy season. It was not until early 1889 that the dikes were finally closed. By then, between drowning, diseases, and famine, the Yellow River flood had killed over 900,000 people.