39. The River of Sorrows
The Yellow River in northern China has been the cradle of that country’s civilization. On numerous occasions, however, it has also been China’s curse: another name for the Yellow River is “The River of Sorrows“. The river, which got its name from the yellow loess silt it carries and that gives it a distinctive color, is lined with dikes to keep it from overflowing its banks. Those dikes have failed on numerous occasions, with disastrous consequences.
From time to time throughout China’s history, sudden heavy rainfalls have caused the Yellow River’s water level to rapidly rise. Sometimes that leads to the river topping and overflowing the protective dikes, or breaching them outright. In 1887, as seen below, one such episode led to the Yellow River’s worst flooding, and history’s second most tragic natural disaster.