How to rebuild corrupted RPM database

Today I repeatedly used yum to install, update, and erase packages. It then hung for a long time during an uninstall. Wondering why it was taking so long, I checked and found that the yum process was not using any CPU. I assumed it had hung, killed it, and ran yum again. It stopped at Loaded plugins: downloadonly, fastestmirror and would not proceed. I tried again, with the same result. Since yum hung every time, I suspected rpm. I looked for rpm processes and found one stuck with a command like this:

rpmq -q --all 

I then ran an rpm command to confirm the cause, and rpm hung too. I suspected that the RPM database had crashed, so I removed its database files and rebuilt it as follows: Remove the __db.* files from /var/lib/rpm/ using:

[root@ezylinux ~]# rm /var/lib/rpm/__db.* 

Rebuild the database with:

[root@ezylinux ~]# rpm --verifydb

After that, yum worked normally again.