In March 1877, the Shandong Famine Relief Committee was established with the participation of diplomats, businessmen, and Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries.

"That people pull down their houses, sell their wives and daughters, eat roots and carrion, clay and leaves is news which nobody wonders at...The sight of men and women lying helpless on the roadside, or if dead, torn by hungry dogs and magpies [and] of children being boiled and eaten up is so fearful as to make one shudder.

The Roman Catholics raised at least 125,000 taels (about $5 million) and their greater physical presence in the famine area permitted them to work effectively at the local level.

[8][9] The Qing government, Chinese philanthropists, and businessmen also responded to the famine, raising funds with an illustrated pamphlet titled "Pictures to Draw Tears from Iron".

While most foreign relief emphasized Shanxi, the private Chinese effort was mostly in Henan, whose people they believed to be fiercely anti-foreign, and Shandong.

To the foreigners, the huge loss of life during the famine was due to the "backwardness" of China and the inefficiency and corruption of the Qing government.