According to many records, January 23, 1556 recorded the most deaths in history with the vast majority of deaths occurring in Shaanxi province in northwest China.
The culprit causing the disaster was a giant earthquake caused by the slip motion of both the Weinan and Huashan faults. With the epicenter near the city of Huatai, this great earthquake is estimated to have claimed the lives of 830,000 people, according to IFL Science.
No one knows the exact mortality rate or number of deaths on the day of the disaster. According to some records, about 1/3 of the victims were killed by falling houses, collapsed caves and landslides immediately after the earthquake, the remaining people lost their lives due to epidemics and famine in the following weeks. there.
With a magnitude of 8 – 8.3, the Shaanxi earthquake is far from the strongest earthquake humanity has ever experienced, but tops the list of the deadliest disasters in human history. The second deadly earthquake took place in 1976, also in China, killing about 655,000 people.
Given that the global population in 1556 was less than 500,000 people, the death toll from the disaster in Shaanxi was almost certainly the largest single-day loss of life. The event may also hold the record for the highest number of deaths, although it is difficult to say with certainty which day recorded the most deaths.
With more than 8 billion people living on Earth today, on average about 170,000 people die every day. The deadliest day of the war took place on the night of March 9 and early morning of March 10, 1945 when the US military’s bombing called Operation Meetinghouse killed 100,000 people in Tokyo. Meanwhile, two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of the same year claimed the lives of 66,000 and 39,000 people, respectively.
The Yellow River flood of 1931 was one of the greatest natural disasters in history. The total death toll remains a matter of debate, although some estimates suggest more than 2 million people in central and eastern China died over a four-month period.