St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-08-01
A MILLION PEOPLE DROWNED.

w IlllG II ILL ollIO Oll
my way to the Johnstown disaster y
says a correspondent of the Phila-
delphia Press, II met a Chinaman,
Ching Low, member of a manufac-
turing firm of Pekin, now travelling
for health and observation. | found
him exceedingly eager to learn all de-
tails regarding Johnstown and the
surrounding country. He had lost
two sisters and a brother in the
great flood in China in the latter
part of 1897, the greatest disaster of
the kind of which history has any
account Ching Low is a man past
fifty years of age, and was raised in
Ho-Nain, the section that was del
uged by the great overflow of the
Hoang-Ho river. A portion of the
family still remains there. He was
the eldest, and for some years had
resided in Pekin, where he was in
business This flood, he believed, en-
tailed a loss of fully 1 100000 peo-
pie Alongside of such a calamity
the Johnstown disaster, terrible as it
is, seems insignificant Among the
attending horrors was cannibalism.
In the agonies of hunger that even
the government was unable to al
leviate hundreds were devoured by
fellow-creatures. A brother of Ching
Low was in 81 section where many
persons were eaten, and he believed
his brother was one of the victims.
This extraordinary flood was caused
by the bursting of retaining walls
and overflow of the banks of the
river, which Ching Low thought was
as large as the Ohio. The country
was very fiat, and the disaster COM
ing in the night, there was little
chance of escape. The devastation
OF the country was so great that 1T
was weeks before outside aid reached
the wretched district. The district
submerged was known on the map
as Fo-Nain, but, on account of its
fer Unity, was styled The Garden of
China Anything that would grow
in China would grow in Ho-Nain.
There were over $500 prosperous
towns in the valley, and all these
were destroyed, even as completely
as Johnstown is destroyed. The
overflow covered about 10000
square miles, and the population on
this area was equal to that of one
of our largest states. In a few hours
all this was under water, even the
tops of the trees being covered. Such
thing as the HOang-HO overflow
ing had never occurred to the inhabi-
tants of the valley, and means of
escape and rescue were meager.
Thousands upon thousands of peO-
IL =.
and thousands more who escaped
from the waste of waters died of
starvation. To add to the horror,
a strange and fatal epidemic broke
out among the distressed, and vast
numbers were carried off by the dis
ease. The government organized a
system of relief, and it was two
years before it could relax its labors
For months the valley of Hoang-Ho
was a charnel-house where bodies
lay rott1ng by the thousands. The
dead were buried and burned as far
as possible, but the loss of life was
so great that many bodies were
never touched. 1t was such a fearful
thing that hundreds who escaped
with their lives were driven mad by
Liz III iiJlN S1SHC, anu IIIdIldCS were
everywhere encountered. 1t was
many months before all these un-
tortunates were secured. Many of
them were murdered by their fellows,
and others, helpless and harmless,
died OF hunger and disease. Ching
Low reached the devastated country
as speedily as possible, but was pow
erless to do anything towards seek
ing his lost relatives. The town in
which they had lived-a town of
several thousand people-was al
most completely wiped out. The
family consisted of four These were
all supposed to have been lost; but a
year after the food a brother turned
up, but his mind was deranged, and
he is now an inmate of a private
asylum in Pekin He has never been
able to give any account of his escape,
aud his condition does not improve
The loss of property by such a calam-
lty was, OF course, tremendous. The |
government undertook to estimate |
it. and it ran into the millions. |
1t was as if a dozen cities like |
Buffalo, Cleveland
and Pittsburg had been utterly de-
Ching Low said this hor-
ror had been a constant nightmare |
to him, and its fearful scenes came |
back to him as he heard of the misery |
and desolation caused by the Johns |
Aood -