The Yellow River—the second longest in the country—is sometimes referred to as 'China's sorrow' due to its tendency over the centuries to produce devastating floods.
Researchers have investigated a catastrophic Yellow River flood that decimated the Chinese city of Kaifeng—a former imperial capital—in A.D. 1642, providing new insights into a disaster thought to have killed an estimated 300,000 people., the scientists examined geological and archaeological evidence, which revealed the flood"destroyed Kaifeng's inner city, entombing the city and its inhabitants within meters of silt and clay"—backing up evidence found in historical documents.
Kaifeng is located on the river's southern bank in what is now central Henan province. It was previously one of the largest cities in the world, and functioned as the imperial capital of several Chinese dynasties. It is also known for being the victim of several Yellow River floods. In the past 3,000 years, the river has flooded the city around 40 times. However, the event of 1642 was perhaps the most devastating of them all.
"The governor of Kaifeng ordered the waters of the Yellow River unleashed in hopes of destroying the rebel army," Xin Xu and Rivka Gonen—authors of the book—wrote."The dikes were broken, but instead of hurting the rebels, the raging waters swept over the low-lying city, drowning a citizenry that was totally unprepared. From a population of 378,000, only a few score thousand survived.
"As a result, the constant influx of floodwater into the city created a deadly mix of mud and urban debris that significantly amplified the destructive power of the Yellow River," Storozum and colleagues wrote.
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