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Nature28 July 1976

Tangshan Earthquake

Also called: 1976 Tangshan earthquake, Great Tangshan Earthquake

Before dawn on 28 July 1976 an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 (7.8 on the Chinese scale) struck Tangshan in Hebei, levelling almost the entire city. The official death toll is 242,419, and some estimates put it higher.

Collapsed buildings in Tangshan after the earthquake — US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1976
Collapsed buildings in Tangshan after the earthquake — US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1976

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration · Public domain · Source

At 3:42 a.m. on 28 July a powerful earthquake struck directly beneath Tangshan. People were asleep, and most brick houses and factories collapsed, turning an industrial city of about a million people into ruins within seconds. A major aftershock of around magnitude 7 followed that afternoon, and there was damage in Beijing and Tianjin as well.

The Chinese government refused offers of foreign aid and sent more than 100,000 soldiers to carry out rescue work. Officially 242,419 people died and more than 160,000 were seriously injured, making it one of the deadliest earthquakes of the twentieth century. Some believe the true toll was higher than the official figure — some researchers suggest over 300,000, and early foreign estimates ran as high as 655,000.

Coming six weeks before Mao’s death, the disaster was seen by some as an omen that the Mandate of Heaven was passing. The city was rebuilt on the same site and now has a memorial park on the earthquake ruins and a museum. The quake led China to tighten its building codes for earthquake resistance.

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States and rulers at the time
People's Republic of China — Paramount leader Mao Zedong
Places
Tangshan

People

  • Hua Guofeng1921 – 2008

    related figure · Mao’s chosen successor, who became premier and party chairman in 1976 and had the Gang of Four arrested, but was eased out by Deng Xiaoping after 1978

Before and after

Earlier
1972 Nixon’s Visit to China
Later
1988 Nordpolitik

Themes that include this event

  • From the Chinese Civil War to the Cultural Revolution1927 – 1976

    From the collapse of the United Front in 1927, through rural bases, the Long March and Yan’an, to the Communists’ victory in the civil war and the founding of the People’s Republic — then land reform, the Great Leap Forward and famine, the Sino-Soviet split and the Cultural Revolution, up to Mao’s death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, while the Nationalist government withdrew to Taiwan