Pandemics and disasters
The Third Pandemic of bubonic plague broke out in China in the 1880s. By the spring of 1894 about 100,000 were reported dead in the mainland. In May 1894 the disease erupted into Hong Kong's overcrowded Chinese quarter of Tai Ping Shan. By the end of the month, an estimated 450 people died of the illness.[1] At its height, the epidemic was killing 100 people per day, and it killed a total of 2,552 people that year. The disease was greatly detrimental to trade and produced a temporary exodus of 100,000 Chinese from the colony. Plague continued to be a problem in the territory for the next 30 years. In the 1870s a typhoon hit Hong Kong one evening reaching its height by midnight. An estimated 2,000 people lost their lives in a span of just six hours.[1