Fire kills scores in latest Chinese high-rise disaster

SHANGHAI, China — A fire that engulfed a high-rise apartment building, killing at least 53 people in one of the deadliest fires in years, deepened the unease in this city of 20 million, most of whom live in high-rises.

Video and online accounts suggested some residents were trapped on the roof of the 28-story building and that a few may have jumped to their deaths. Three helicopters tried to rescue residents from above, but flames and thick smoke hampered the efforts, Xinhua said. Some people clung to scaffolding; others were able to climb down.

Against the backdrop of a nationwide construction boom, buildings across the city are under construction or renovation.

Local officials said the building housed 156 families, and many people remained unaccounted for. More than 70 were reportedly rushed to hospitals. Shanghai television said rescue officials set up a command center in a nearby stadium, the BBC reported.

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World Worst Disasters : Tropical storm approaches southern China island amid nationwide rain disasters

HAIKOU, Aug. 23 -- China is bracing for a strong tropical storm named "Mindelle", which is expected to skim the southernmost island province of Hainan between Monday midnight and Tuesday morning.

At 8 a.m. Monday, a tropical low pressure system across the South China Sea intensified into the 5th tropical storm of the year, after being upgraded to a strong tropical storm eight hours later.

The storm, by the name of "Mindellu", which means dandelion in Korean, is likely to approach the Beibu Gulf off the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region after skipping Hainan, the Hainan provincial meteorological bureau said.

Local authorities in Hainan have halted railway, shipping services and tourism programs and called fishing boats to return to ports as they braced for the storm.

Both cargo as well as passenger shipping services were halted at 5 p.m., according to the ban issued by the provincial maritime affairs bureau.

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1556 Shaanxi earthquake

Shaanxi earthquake in 1556

Map of China showing Shaanxi province (red) and the other provinces affected by the earthquake (orange). This map however is not the territory covered during the Ming dynasty. This map is the present day boundary reference to where the damages were.
Date	January 23, 1556 (1556-01-23)
Magnitude	8.0
Depth	NA
Epicenter location	34°30′N 109°18′E / 34.50°N 109.30°E / 34.50; 109.30Coordinates: 34°30′N 109°18′E / 34.50°N 109.30°E / 34.50; 109.30 (Hua County, Shaanxi)
Countries or regions affected	Ming Dynasty
Casualties	820,000 - 830,000 (est.)Deadliest earthquake of all time

The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake (Chinese: 华县大地震; pinyin: Huà xiàn dà dìzhèn) or Jiajing earthquake (Chinese: 嘉靖大地震; pinyin: jiājìng dà dìzhèn) was a catastrophic earthquake and is also the deadliest earthquake on record, killing approximately 830,000 people in China. It occurred on the morning of 23 January 1556 in Shaanxi, during the Ming Dynasty. More than 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Anhui were affected. An 840-kilometre (520 mi)-wide area was destroyed, and in some counties 60% of the population was killed. Most of the population in the area at the time lived in yaodongs, artificial caves in loess cliffs, many of which collapsed during the catastrophe with great loss of life.

Geography

The Shaanxi earthquake's epicenter was in the Wei River Valley in Shaanxi Province, near the cities of Huaxian, Weinan and Huayin. In Huaxian, every single building and home was demolished, killing more than half the residents of the city, with a death toll estimated in the tens of thousands. The situation in Weinan and Huayin was similar. In certain areas, 20-metre (66 ft) deep crevices opened in the earth. Destruction and death were everywhere, affecting places as far as 500 kilometres (310 mi) from the epicenter. The earthquake also triggered landslides, which contributed to the massive death toll. The rupture occurred during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, in Chinese historical record, this earthquake is often referred to as the Jiajing Great Earthquake (Chinese: 嘉靖大地震; pinyin: jiā jìng dà dì zhèn).

Modern estimates, based on geological data, give the earthquake a magnitude of approximately 8 on the moment magnitude scale or XI on the Mercalli scale. While it was the deadliest earthquake and the third deadliest natural disaster in history, there have been earthquakes with considerably higher magnitudes.

Following the earthquake, aftershocks continued several times a month for half a year.

In the annals of China it was described in this manner:

In the winter of 1556, an earthquake catastrophe occurred in the Shaanxi and Shanxi Provinces. In our Hua County, various misfortunes took place. Mountains and rivers changed places and roads were destroyed. In some places, the ground suddenly rose up and formed new hills, or it sank abruptly and became new valleys. In other areas, a stream burst out in an instant, or the ground broke and new gullies appeared. Huts, official houses, temples and city walls collapsed all of a sudden.

The earthquake damaged many of the Forest of Stone steles badly. Of the 114 Kaicheng Stone Classics, 40 were broken in the earthquake.

The scholar Qin Keda lived through the earthquake and recorded details. One conclusion he drew was that "at the very beginning of an earthquake, people indoors should not go out immediately. Just crouch down and wait. Even if the nest has collapsed, some eggs may remain intact." This may indicate that many people were killed trying to flee while some who stayed put may have survived.

The shaking reduced the height of the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an from 45 meters to 43.4 meters.

Loess caves

Millions of people at the time lived in artificial Loess caves on high cliffs in the area of the Loess Plateau. Loess is the name for the silty soil that windstorms deposited on the plateau over the ages. The soft loess clay had formed over thousands of years due to wind blowing silt into the area from the Gobi Desert. Loess is a highly erosion-prone soil that is susceptible to the forces of wind and water. The Loess Plateau and its dusty soil cover almost all of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces and parts of others. Much of the population lived in dwellings called yaodongs in these cliffs. This was the major contributing factor to the huge death toll. The earthquake caused landslides, which destroyed the caves.

Cost

The cost of damage done by the earthquake is almost impossible to measure in modern terms. The death toll, however, has been traditionally given as 820,000 to 830,000. The accompanying property damage would have been incalculable – an entire region of inner China had been destroyed and an estimated 60% of the region's population died.

The Black Death: Bubonic Plague

In the early 1330s an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague occurred in China. The bubonic plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands called buboes, which is how it gets its name. The disease also causes spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black.

Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what happened:

"Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial."

The disease struck and killed people with terrible speed. The Italian writer Boccaccio said its victims often

"ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."

By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England, where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it produced on the skin. A terrible killer was loose across Europe, and Medieval medicine had nothing to combat it.

In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After 5 years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.

Even when the worst was over, smaller outbreaks continued, not just for years, but for centuries. The survivors lived in constant fear of the plague's return, and the disease did not disappear until the 1600s.

Medieval society never recovered from the results of the plague. So many people had died that there were serious labor shortages all over Europe. This led workers to demand higher wages, but landlords refused those demands. By the end of the 1300s peasant revolts broke out in England, France, Belgium and Italy.

The disease took its toll on the church as well. People throughout Christendom had prayed devoutly for deliverance from the plague. Why hadn't those prayers been answered? A new period of political turmoil and philosophical questioning lay ahead.

Black Death - Disaster Strikes

25 million people died in just under 5 years between 1347 and 1352. Estimated population of Europe from 1000 to 1352.

• 1000 38 million
• 1100 48 million
• 1200 59 million
• 1300 70 million
• 1347 75 million
• 1352 50 million

1887 Yellow River flood

The 1887 Yellow River flood was a devastating flood on the Yellow River (Huang He) in China. This river is prone to flooding due to the elevated nature of the river, running between dykes above the broad plains surrounding it. The flood that began in September 1887 devastated the area, killing some 900,000 people It was one of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded.

For centuries, the farmers living near the Yellow River had built dikes to contain the rising waters, caused by silt accumulation on the riverbed. In 1887, this rising riverbed, coupled with days of heavy rain, overcame the dikes on around 28th September, causing a massive flood. Since there is no international unit with which to measure a flood's strength it is usually classified by the extent of the damage done, depth of water left and number of casualties.

The waters of the Yellow River are generally thought to have broken through the dikes in Huayankou, near the city of Zhengzhou in Henan province. Owing to the low-lying plains near the area, the flood spread very quickly throughout Northern China, covering an estimated 50,000 square miles, swamping agricultural settlements and commercial centers. After the flood, two million were left homeless. The resulting pandemic and lack of basic essentials claimed as many lives as those lost directly by the flood itself. It was one of the worst floods in history, though the later 1931 Yellow River flood may have killed as many as four million.