how many people were invoved in the building of the panama canal?

Question

i need to know what physical obstacles were faced when building the panama canal, as well as how many people were involved in the building of it.

Answer 1

there were two attempts at building the Canal..the French in the 1880's tried to duplicate their success at Suez by digging a canal through Panama at sea level. Problem was there was the Charges River in the way and the spine of central America, the Cordiellas mountains to about 300 feet. The French lost about 15,000 dead to malaria and yellow fever and accidents, went bankrupt and left.

The American effort started in 1904; by then we had a grip on the cause of yellow fever and malaria and just about wiped them out; rather than dealing with going through a huge river and big hills, the US engineers built a dam for the river, making a huge lake in the middle of the country, and a set of locks on each end to the lake; up goes a ship, across the lake and down the other side. AT its peak the US effort had about 45,000 people, about 15,000 Americans and 30,000 West Indian....mostly Barbados born...at the job.

This makes the Canal not only a huge engineering effort but a 60 mile long machine; it raises a dozen 60,000 ton ships a day using only collected rainwater in the lake and gravity...

Answer 2

landslides.
Malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases


39,000 workers were involved.