Houses were destroyed along with everything in them. The summer crops of rice were obliterated and the winter’s crops of wheat were decimated. The country faced wide-spread starvation. The government was worse than useless too, they’d got no cash to help and no friends in the international community to ask for help. Living in the chaos of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the subsequent Chinese Civil War the governmental coffers were bare. All they could afford were some flimsy dams along the Yangtze River.

One of the worst hit areas was the city of Gaoyou, on the banks of a huge lake. One of August’s cyclones pretty much emptied the lake onto the population and an estimated 10,000 people died in one day.

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