Kangi Famine (Japan)
The kangi famine occurred in Japan during the year’s 1229 to 1232and it is considered as the worst famine in Japanese history it is resulted due to volcanic eruption, unusually cold and damp weather even during the summer times.
In 1230 snow was falling in central Japan in the
summer, the changing weather caused many of the harvest to die out. As
consequence, the death toll started to rise in one state in central Japan about
20% of the cultivators died in less than a month, as the death toll kept on
rising people broke down and started to raid neighboring peninsulas for food.
The famine also led numerous fights between landlords and individuals with many states unable to pay taxes the most important counter measure taken to try and reduce the impact of the lengthy crop failure was the legalization of the sale of human beings when a family was faced with starvation members might choose to sell children for the grain. It shows us how severe the famine was.
Due to this the fertility rate dropped and
recovering from the famine became even more difficult.
The Great Famine (Europe)
In 1315 heavy rain hits Europe during spring which was unusual and throughout the spring and summer it continued to rain with the temperature remaining cool, this started a chain reaction and eventually led to the death of millions of people and a period marked by extreme levels of crime, disease, and even cannibalism.
As the temperatures was cool the crops failed and at the same time animals starved. The depth of livestock was next, at this point the price of food started to increase and in England the prices doubled within a period of few months. As the weather kept remaining cold and wet people were unable to obtain even salt as they had no way of evaporating the brine. People began to harvest wild edible roots, plants etc.
The famine was so harsh, even king Edward II at some points could not find bread for himself. In 1316 the rain had not lessened and Europe was deprived of energy.
The Great Famine of Estonia
In the summer of 1695 excessive rain fell falling almost constantly from June 24th to September 29th this excess rain destroyed crops and the low-lying lands became flooded this resulted in a shortage of seeds for the following autumn and spring sowing seasons the winter that followed was bitterly cold and lasted until May leaving little time to sow the seeds even then heavy rain started to fall throughout the summer and the harvest became smaller, in some areas the crop field was reduced to 3%.
By the end of the summer in 1696 many peasants were destitute and hungry farmhands servants and even some members of the nobility were reduced to begging by autumn famine had taken hold by October the death rate began to rise peasants orphans and elderly began to die of starvation and the spring snowmelt of1697 revealed many corpses.
The winter was so severe that the
corpses could not be buried until the following spring, it was estimated that one
fifth of the population of Estonia perished.
The Lake Famine
In June of 1783 the volcanic fissure named Laki started to erupt until February of 1780 for a period of eight months. The devastating consequences of this led to the death of approximately 25% of the Icelandic population the explosion of the volcano produced 14 cubic kilometers of basalt lava some of the lava fountains reached heights between 800 to 1400 meters, outpouring of gases including hydrogen fluoride and Sulphur dioxide.
This was
absolutely disastrous for Iceland an estimated 50% of the livestock died due to
the amount of hydrogen fluoride that was released the harvest also failed due
to acid rain which were strong to burn holes in the leaves, kill trees and
irritate skin this coupled with most of the freshwater sources being polluted
by the Sulphur and fluoride led to a famine which lasted for many years the
lava flow also ended up destroying 20 villages.
Famine of Europe (1866-68)
The famine of 1866 is known as “the great hunger years” and in Sweden it is known as “the year of great weakness”, during the previous year’s poor harvests were already occurring due to weather conditions.
However in 1866 the summer was hit with heavy rains, this caused most of the crops fail, potatoes and most of the root vegetables were rotting due to the high amounts of water in the soil. Thousands stuck to the road to beg, the winter that followed was harsh and the cold temperatures didn’t subside until the late spring season in many places.
Lakes and rivers remain frozen until June, by the autumn of 1867 people were dying by the thousands; the government of Finland at the time was ill-equipped to handle a crisis of such magnitude.
There was no money readily available to import food
from the Central European market and the government was slow to recognize the
severity of the situation, it wasn’t until 1868 that they returned to
normal, however 8.5% of the entire population of Finland had perished.
Written By - V Mary Adhasha
Edited By - Tushna Choksey
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