The Great Tenmei Famine of 1782 to 1788 was the worst famine of the Edo period, exceeding even the Kyōhō and Tenpō famines in death toll and geographical reach. It began with the cold, rainy summer of 1782 and its failed harvests, then worsened in July 1783 when Mt. Asama erupted violently, blanketing eastern Japan in ash and sending dust into the stratosphere that further dimmed the sun. Compounded by the simultaneous eruption of Laki in Iceland, the global cooling devastated Japan. The Tōhoku region suffered catastrophically; in the Tsugaru and Nanbu domains, starvation became rampant and even cannibalism was recorded. Estimates of nationwide deaths range from 300,000 to over 1 million, with Tsugaru alone losing more than 100,000. Starving migrants poured into Edo and Osaka, and in 1787 more than thirty cities erupted in urban smashings (Tenmei uchikowashi), precipitating the fall of Tanuma Okitsugu and the rise of Matsudaira Sadanobu with the Kansei Reforms. The horror of the Tenmei Famine became the starting point of all later shogunate famine-relief policies, including the grain-storage system (kakoi-mai).