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    Sichuan famine, 1936-37

    China plague Manchuria 1910 1911

    In spring 1936, reports of drought and starvation in Sichuan began to appear in the press in China and overseas.[1] By the following year it was being reported that two thirds of the countryside in the normally fertile province had turned to ‘hard, grassless clay’,[2] while according to a survey of the Szechwan Famine Relief Commission 30 million people were affected in 140 out of 149 hsien (districts) in the province.[3] Continue reading