Historically the people of the Loess Plateau have made simple, insulated shelter from the cold winter and hot summer in the region, by carving homes called "yaodong" () into the loess soil. In medieval times people stayed here to grow rice; some families still live in this kind of shelter in modern times. However, they are vulnerable to earthquakes: during the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake, 830,000 people were killed as a result of collapsing loess caves.