Not planning for the issue of yellow fever was yet another costly French mistake. As was the apparent underlying assumption, in the original sea level design, that they would just dredge the Chagres until they finally reached the Pacific?

A hard headed refusal to drop a flawed design based on simplistic or unrealistic assumptions, in extremely difficult geography and unhealthy conditions, until they went finally went bankrupt is what characterized the dreadfully lethal French canal attempt in Panama.

It is said that the Panama Railroad in 1859 lost a man for each sleeper laid in the Chagres Valley.

California at least has a healthy dry climate....... We only appear to occasionally lose a CEO for every couple of billion of tax payer dollars wasted.