The total population of the republic at that time was about 31 million people. The direct losses amounted to about 13 per cent of that number.4 The vast majority of casualties were in the countryside: of the 3.9 million excess deaths, 3.5 million were rural and 400,000 urban. More than 90 per cent of the deaths took place in 1933, and most of those in the first half of the year, with the highest numbers of casualties in May, June and July.
