Page 63 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
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GFA – A Different Drumbeat 63
earth. The majority of the victims had quick deaths. Grave fears are held that
a plague is breaking out, yet the neighbouring province is refusing to deplete
their own meagre stock by aiding the sufferers.
In New York State the Rome Daily Sentinel for Friday 10 January 1930
16,000 PERISH OF FAMINE AND COLD IN CHINA PEIPING REPORTS
TELL OF BITTEREST WEATHER IN LAST SIXTY YEARS. 2,500
PERSONS FROZEN TO DEATH IN FENGCHEN. BODIES OF VICTIMS
DEAD BY HUNGER AND EXPOSURE LIE IN STREETS.
Loss of 15,000 lives as the result of intense cold in the Suiyuan district of
Inner Mongolia, near the border of Shansi Province, was reported today. The
report said unusually cold weather gripped the entire Northwestern part of
China, resulting in widespread suffering among the populace.
Another report said:
A Church of England missionary, the Reverend Griffith, reported from Suiyuan
that the 1928 harvest had failed almost everywhere, that scores of refugees
were dying of starvation every day. and pneumonic plague was killing those
whom hunger had spared. By July 1929. the wheat-growing area of central
Kansu had had no rain for four years and was looking like a desert.
And on 16 January 1930 The Cairns Post had this on their front page:
Ghastly details of the famine conditions existing in the Kansu Province of
Central China were revealed here to-day by Mr Findlay Andrew, a director of
the China International Famine Relief Commission, who returned to Shanghai
following an exhaustive investigation.
Lanchowfu, the capital of the province, is practically a city of the dead stated
Mr. Andrew. Sixty per cent of the population has been exterminated by
pestilence and starvation, and the remainder is faced with the same prospect.
Huge pits are necessary to bury the dead. Typhus is raging in many districts
and rotting bodies and skeletons are littering the roads. A pitiful sight in
Lanchowfu was 100 tiny children being offered for sale by their parents in an
improvised slave market. Unable to find buyers at the average price of six
dollars, the parents turned their children adrift to starve.
The whole countryside is denuded for hundreds of miles, with the trees
stripped completely of bark which is used for food, whilst the ground
resembles rabbit warrens where the natives have been digging for roots. Mr.
Andrew states that his investigation shows that there is little hope of
immediate relief owing to the absence of railways, whilst motors are unable to
use the roads. Every animal that could have been used to transport food and
earth. The majority of the victims had quick deaths. Grave fears are held that
a plague is breaking out, yet the neighbouring province is refusing to deplete
their own meagre stock by aiding the sufferers.
In New York State the Rome Daily Sentinel for Friday 10 January 1930
16,000 PERISH OF FAMINE AND COLD IN CHINA PEIPING REPORTS
TELL OF BITTEREST WEATHER IN LAST SIXTY YEARS. 2,500
PERSONS FROZEN TO DEATH IN FENGCHEN. BODIES OF VICTIMS
DEAD BY HUNGER AND EXPOSURE LIE IN STREETS.
Loss of 15,000 lives as the result of intense cold in the Suiyuan district of
Inner Mongolia, near the border of Shansi Province, was reported today. The
report said unusually cold weather gripped the entire Northwestern part of
China, resulting in widespread suffering among the populace.
Another report said:
A Church of England missionary, the Reverend Griffith, reported from Suiyuan
that the 1928 harvest had failed almost everywhere, that scores of refugees
were dying of starvation every day. and pneumonic plague was killing those
whom hunger had spared. By July 1929. the wheat-growing area of central
Kansu had had no rain for four years and was looking like a desert.
And on 16 January 1930 The Cairns Post had this on their front page:
Ghastly details of the famine conditions existing in the Kansu Province of
Central China were revealed here to-day by Mr Findlay Andrew, a director of
the China International Famine Relief Commission, who returned to Shanghai
following an exhaustive investigation.
Lanchowfu, the capital of the province, is practically a city of the dead stated
Mr. Andrew. Sixty per cent of the population has been exterminated by
pestilence and starvation, and the remainder is faced with the same prospect.
Huge pits are necessary to bury the dead. Typhus is raging in many districts
and rotting bodies and skeletons are littering the roads. A pitiful sight in
Lanchowfu was 100 tiny children being offered for sale by their parents in an
improvised slave market. Unable to find buyers at the average price of six
dollars, the parents turned their children adrift to starve.
The whole countryside is denuded for hundreds of miles, with the trees
stripped completely of bark which is used for food, whilst the ground
resembles rabbit warrens where the natives have been digging for roots. Mr.
Andrew states that his investigation shows that there is little hope of
immediate relief owing to the absence of railways, whilst motors are unable to
use the roads. Every animal that could have been used to transport food and
