From June to September 1954, the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The p ...

Province. Due to unusually high volume of

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in the middle stretch of the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

late in the spring of 1954, the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June. Despite efforts to open three important flood gates to alleviate the rising water by diverting it, the flood level continued to rise until it hit the historic high of in Jingzhou,

and in Wuhan. The number of dead from this flood was estimated at around 33,000, including those who died of

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pes ...

in the aftermath of the disaster.

Casualties

Partly as a result of this flood, the pressure to build new dams, the

Gezhouba Dam The Gezhouba Dam or Gezhouba Water Control Project () on the Yangtze River is located in the western suburbs of Yichang, in central China's Hubei province. One of the largest run-of-the-river dams, it sits several kilometers upstream from downt ...

and the Three Gorges Dam, in the upper reach of Yangtze river, gained considerable momentum.

Commemoration

In 1969, a large stone monument was erected in the riverside park in Hankou (City of Wuhan,

) honoring the heroic deeds in fighting the 1954 flood. Among the carvings on the monument is a calligraphic inscription by

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also Romanization of Chinese, romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the List of national founde ...

, dedicated to the people of Wuhan: Below, is his poem "Swimming" (1956), envisioning future bridge and dam construction on the Yangtze:Imperial Tours - Three Gorges Dam
/ref> On the sides of the monument's pedestal are reliefs depicting heroic people of Wuhan fighting the flood, raising banners and placards with quotations from Mao Zedong.

Comparison

Compared to the 1998 Yangtze River Floods, this flooding was more severe in terms of total flow of water, but less in terms of the highest level that the flood water reached. This is probably a result of the intense logging on the banks of the upper reach of Yangtze River during the later part of the 20th century.

References

{{Reflist Yangtze River Floods, 1954 Yangtze River Floods, 1954 History of Hubei Yangtze River floods