Natural Disaster · 1556

The 1556 Earthquake That Killed 830,000 Before Sunrise

On January 23rd, 1556, the cliffs of Shaanxi province in China began to collapse while the people inside them were still asleep. Most people in this part of China lived in yaodong — cave dwellings carved into the region's soft loess cliffs. The caves had kept people warm and sheltered for generations.

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