The potato crop failures were caused by late blight, which destroyed both the leaves and the edible tubers, of the potato plant. It is thought that wet conditions over more than one growing season enabled the blight, Phytophthora infestans, to thrive with devastating results.About as many as two million Irish people emigrated during the famine. It is thought that about one million people died from starvation or other famine-related diseases, one disease being typhus.