The correct answers are A and B, as both construction problems and yellow fever were the two major difficulties faced by the Panama Canal project.
A: CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS --- In September of 1882, when an earthquake shook the isthmus, there was a sludge of mud that made the ground in which the canal was being built unstable, so the works and traffic of the railways had to be interrupted for some time . This event led to a decline in the share price of the company on the Paris stock exchange, which went bankrupt in February 1889.
Without financial support, the head of the construction work, Bunau-Varilla, went to the US government, which decided to cede the rights of exploitation and construction of the Panama Canal and control of the area around it. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed on November 18, 1903, validated this operation
B: YELLOW FEVER --- This epidemic, unknown by doctors, claimed hundreds of lives. The patients were treated by the sisters of San Vicente de Paul in the two hospitals they had, one in the province of Colon, with 200 beds, and another in the foothills of Cerro Ancón, known as Notre Dame.
The medical staff, who did not know what the cause of the yellow fever epidemic was, put buckets of water on the legs of the hospital beds, which served as breeding grounds for the mosquitoes, the true cause of the illnesses. This caused that many workers refused, even, to go to the hospital to receive medical attention.
In 1882 the epidemic had claimed the lives of 125 employees.
