Earthquake in China 1976. The most destructive earthquake in China

1976, July 28 - tremors measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale turned the Chinese industrial city of Tangshan (Hebei Province) with a population of one and a half million into a pile of ruins. The material damage at that time was enormous - more than $2 billion. According to various sources, from 242 to 800 thousand people died and about a million were maimed and injured. This number of victims is comparable only to the earthquake of January 23, 1556 in the province of Shaanxi (center - Xi'an). Then about 830 thousand people died and approximately the same number were seriously injured.

At times, natural disasters are preceded by. For example, the earthquake in Turkey on August 17, 1999, according to witnesses, began with mysterious lights: “They were unusually clear, round or triangular in shape, white, yellow, red and blue, and remained in the sky from 5 to 20 minutes. Before the tremors themselves, the seabed in Izmit turned red and the water temperature rose to 40–45 °C.”

The 1976 Tangshan earthquake in northeastern China also began with incredible light effects. According to eyewitnesses, the day before, near some islands in the Yellow Sea, a very bright luminous ribbon was observed on the surface of the water. On land, in the area of the future underground storm, approximately five and a half hours before it began, the night sky was illuminated by a white glow that lasted 20 minutes. 30 minutes before the tragedy, a huge fireball flew across the sky, which later turned into a bright sparkling streak. About 10 minutes before the start of the tremors, a red arc appeared in the sky and the electricity supply was interrupted in almost the entire province.

Just before the very first ground vibrations at 3:42 a.m. local time, the sky for many kilometers lit up as if it were day. Numerous lights, most of them white and red, were visible up to 200 miles away. Bushes and crops were burned, leaves on the trees were charred.

A direct participant in the tragedy, a locomotive driver, later said that approximately a minute before the earthquake began, his fast train was traveling near Tangshan, and in the darkness of the night he saw something that looked like flashing lightning. Then the traffic light suddenly switched from green to red and went out. The driver urgently braked and was able to stop the train before the rails began to bend under the influence of tremors. “The train began to sway violently from side to side, half-naked passengers jumped out of the cars in horror, and cracks appeared along the ground. In the distance thunder rolled over the city, columns of dust, smoke and fire shot up into the sky.”

At about 5 o'clock in the morning, repeated tremors followed, as a result of which the surviving buildings in some places in the province collapsed. The epicenter of the earthquake was in Tangshan, almost all of its residents died under the rubble of buildings. There were enterprises in the coal and chemical industries, heavy engineering, and a large metallurgical plant built by Soviet specialists.

All plants and factories, as well as residential buildings, instantly turned into ruins. Bridges, dams, power lines, railroad tracks, highways, and pipelines were destroyed. Fires were burning and there was no one to put them out. The entire city was practically leveled to the ground, covered with many huge cracks. A hospital building fell into one of them, and a train with passengers fell into the other.

The Tangshan earthquake was felt within a radius of hundreds of miles from the epicenter. The shock wave even reached Beijing, located 160 km to the west, and there was also destruction and casualties. Neighboring Tianjin was also badly damaged - after the disaster, the city was closed to visitors for two years.

What’s scary is that the communist Chinese government did everything to hide the scale of the tragedy. The affected areas of one of the most densely populated provinces - Hebei - were cordoned off by troops and strictly limited entry, and foreign journalists, rescuers and doctors were not allowed in at all. The “Great Helmsman” Mao Zedong refused Western support, and representatives of the International Red Cross could not deliver the humanitarian aid necessary for the population. As a result, many thousands of affected Chinese died from hunger, wounds and disease.

Chinese soldiers built temporary shelters for the wounded, but there were not enough of them. Water supply was a serious problem, as water mains were ruptured. Surviving eyewitnesses of the tragedy later said that they were left without food and water for several days. There were few professional rescuers, and thousands of corpses remained under the rubble. To prevent epidemics, Tangshan was sprayed with disinfectants from airplanes.

During July 31 and August 1, 1976, seismologists recorded more than 100 tremors, the strength of which reached 4-5 points on the Richter scale. But there was nothing left to destroy - instead of a gigantic industrial center, there remained a huge space consisting of nothing but ruins. In the photographs of Soviet and American space satellites, this picture was similar to Hiroshima after a nuclear strike in 1945. Well, after the ruins of Tangshan, along with the bodies remaining under the ruins of buildings, they were leveled by bulldozers.

Due to an unprecedented earthquake, and after the death of the “great helmsman,” the command of the Soviet Army twice canceled military exercises in military districts located near the Chinese border. Relations between the Soviet Union and China remained far from friendly, and the leadership of the USSR decided that it was not worth rattling sabers in the immediate vicinity of the borders of a billion-strong neighbor during such tense periods of its history.

There were no official reports about the earthquake from Beijing, but a Hong Kong newspaper reported that 655,237 people had died. Years later, the Chinese communist press cited a figure of 242 thousand victims. According to Western experts, there were from 800 thousand to one million people killed in the entire province, plus the same number, if not more, of maimed people.

The tragedy was an “unplanned” event during the reign of Mao Zedong, who assured that while he was in power, there would be no cataclysms in his state. According to ancient Chinese belief, an earthquake meant that Heaven was angry and great changes were about to come. In fact, on September 9 of the same year, 1976, the elderly communist Emperor Mao died, and his widow Jiang Qing was condemned as an “enemy of the people.”

On the other hand, the Tangshan earthquake served as an impetus for a new stage of work on earthquake forecasting in China and other countries. Since then, scientists have predicted more than 20 dangerous series of tremors. On the eve of ten of them, the Chinese authorities managed to evacuate the population to safe places in a timely manner, for example, in July 1995, when an earthquake occurred on the border with Burma, and in 1997 in Janshi (Hinjang).

Decades after the disaster, a bird park was created in the newly built Tangshan. It was opened on October 1, 2000, China's National Day. The green area occupied an area of 15 thousand m2 and consisted of about 3,000 birds of 70 species. In the neighboring city of Tianjin, with a population of 5 million, which also suffered from the elements on the fateful day of July 28, 1976, a Memorial was erected in front of the Friendship Hotel in memory of the victims of the earthquake in Hebei Province.

If you take an excursion into history, you will find out that back on September 2, 1679, a tragedy occurred in this area, which was accompanied by numerous destruction and claimed tens of thousands of human lives. In the following centuries, the indomitable underground element continued to count its victims around the world. Let's take the 20th century as an example:

1906, April 18 - an earthquake in America, as a result of which the city of San Francisco was destroyed - about 8,000 people died;
1920 - China - 200,000;
1923 and 1939, China - 200,000 and 28,000 respectively;

And there were also earthquakes in Ashgabat (1948), Germany (1978), Armenia (1988), etc. It is interesting that most of them occurred on the days of the new moon or full moon. Accident? Or does the Moon also influence the occurrence of such catastrophes?

According to statistics, seismic disasters are occurring on Earth more and more often. And there is no explanation for this yet. If during the years 1900–1930 “only” 2,000 underground storms were registered, then in the period 1940–1982 there were at least 1,000 of them every year. 1983 - seismological instruments recorded 300,000 underground tremors of varying strengths. (A person feels ground vibrations from three points and above.)

Since 1984, the number of recorded earthquakes has been about 1,000 every day. Of course, not all of them lead to casualties and destruction, but the proportion of dangerous earthquakes is also growing. In the first half of the 20th century, there were 33 of them, and in the second half – already 95. In 1947–1970, more than 150,000 people died as a result of earthquakes in the world. Between 1962 and 1992, the number of victims was already 577,000.

“This scourge is spreading far and wide. Inevitable, greedy, it affects the entire people at once. For not only individual houses, families, cities are destroyed, it happens that entire tribes and countries go underground, hiding under ruins or falling into an open abyss,” wrote the Roman philosopher Seneca.

Among the latest reports, one can note the earthquake in the northern part of China (on the border with Kyrgyzstan) in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in February 2003. Then about 300 people died, more than 2,000 Chinese were injured, and more than 11,000 houses were destroyed. According to eyewitnesses, complete chaos reigned at the scene of the tragedy, village hospitals were overcrowded, and ambulances were constantly bringing in new wounded. Moreover, so often that doctors did not even have the opportunity to count them.

2004, August 9 - in the southwestern part of China in Yunnan province, the force of tremors reached 5.6 points. As a result, about 400,000 people were left homeless, about 200 were injured and 4 died. The underground element continues to reap its deadly harvest.

The 1976 Tanshan earthquake is one of the largest earthquakes of the 20th century, and in terms of the number of human casualties it ranks first in the world in this century. It occurred on July 18, 1976 at 3:42 Beijing time, and had a magnitude of 7.8 (changed to 7.5), a focal depth of 15 kilometers, and an intensity at the epicenter of XI on the Chinese intensity scale. The earthquake caused massive damage and massive loss of life as it occurred in a densely populated industrial city.
Causes. Tanshan is located in northern China, 150 kilometers east of the Chinese capital Beijing. Chinese seismologists have long noticed that the region has the potential for large earthquakes. And in fact, this type of tectonic activity occurs relatively frequently in northern China.

The Yanshan fault zone runs in an east-west direction and lies north of the Tanshan area; to the south there are several parallel fault zones of northeastern direction - the structural fault belt of the Shanxi depression, the Tanshan fault zone, the Kandong fault zone and others. The Tanshan region is located in the area where the Yanshan and Kandong faults meet.
Seismic activity in northern China is relatively high. A large number of strong earthquakes have been recorded here in past centuries. The fourth period of high seismic activity began in 1815 and continues to this day.
Since the 1966 earthquake, Xingtai (425 km southwest of Tanshan) has frequently experienced seismic events greater than magnitude 6.0. Among them are such earthquakes as the 1967 earthquake in Hejiang (225 km southwest of Tanshan) with a magnitude of 6.3, the 1969 earthquake in Bohai with a magnitude of 7.4, the 1975 Haicheng earthquake (400 km east of Tanshan) with a magnitude of 7 ,3, 1976 in Horinger (550 km west of Tanshan) with a magnitude of 6.3. Thus, the Tanshan earthquake occurred as a result of a continuous and gradual increase in seismic activity in northern China.
Since 1972, all kinds of anomalies that are harbingers of earthquakes have been regularly observed in the northern part of China. In the area of the Yan Shan fault zone, a decrease in the frequency of small earthquakes, a uniform distribution of the “first movement” during small earthquakes, the formation of seismic faults, ruptures, and a decrease in the ratio of P- and S-wave velocities were observed.
A large area of the southern foothills of the Yan Shan belt rose from 1970 to 1975. Around 1973, abnormally high concentrations of radon in water, changes in crustal currents, and changes in magnetic field strength were noted in the area between Beijing and the coastal region of Bohai and at stations in southern Liaoning Province.
After the 1975 Haicheng earthquake, these changes appeared again in the southern part of Liaoning Province, and they continued to develop after some time in the Beijing-Tanshan region.
Based on a joint analysis of tectonic conditions, seismicity and the presence of precursors, in June 1974 it was predicted that an earthquake of magnitude 5 to 6 would occur in the Beijing-Tianjin region and north of Bohai Bay in the next year or two.
New assumptions were made in January 1976 by employees of the State Seismic Bureau: “earthquakes of magnitude 5-6 may occur in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanshan region and in the Bohai-Zhangjiakou region (310 km northwest of Tanshan). Particular attention was to be paid to the areas between Tanshan and Chaoyang and between Beijing and Tianjin.
After the Haicheng earthquake in February 1975, a series of small and moderate earthquakes occurred frequently in northern China in the provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Taiyuan, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia.
However, a stronger earthquake was not predicted, since it was not clear what the existing anomalies were associated with - with relatively weak earthquakes or with the one that could have happened?
In the days before the earthquake, sharp fluctuations in groundwater levels and abnormal animal behavior were noted in Tangshan, but they did not convince anyone that a stronger earthquake could occur.

Effects and intensity. The zone of maximum destruction of the Tanshan earthquake has an elliptical shape, with an area of about 47 square kilometers and includes the city of Tanshan and the area along the Beijing-Shanhaiguan railway. The intensity in this zone is described as XI.
In this area, all the buildings were in ruins, and only a few were badly damaged, the rails were bent, and all the road bridges were broken.
The area where the intensity of the earthquake was X points also had an elliptical shape and was elongated to the northeast. Its area was approximately 370 square kilometers. In this zone, about 80% of all houses and almost half of industrial buildings were destroyed. There were fountains of water and mud coming out of the ground. Almost all irrigation wells have stopped functioning.
The region of intensity IX had a rhombus shape and an area of about 1800 square kilometers and also had a northeastern direction. Most residential buildings were damaged and 40% of them collapsed. Half of the industrial structures were destroyed.
The southern part of the affected area is located relatively close to the sea, so the soils have water-saturated layers or interlayers. Releases of water and sand were relatively common, with a maximum diameter of 3 meters for mud and silt releases. Large areas of agricultural land were covered with discarded soil.
The region of intensity VIII extends in a southeastern direction and has an area of about 7,300 square kilometers. In this area, most of the buildings were very old and did not have earthquake resistance, and therefore the damage was relatively serious.
The region of intensity VII had an area of about 33,000 square kilometers. There was less damage here, with some very old houses collapsing and most buildings suffering varying degrees of damage.
Damage to buildings and structures caused by the earthquake was obviously influenced by ground conditions. In the northern part of the region, the depth of sediment on the rock cover is relatively shallow, and therefore damage was relatively light.
And in the southern region the layer of sedimentary rocks is thick, consisting mainly of sandy or clayey rocks, and the groundwater level is high. Damage was therefore quite severe in this area, especially to older and poorly constructed structures.

Casualties and damage. The earthquake received the common name “Great Tanshan Earthquake.” It almost razed the industrial city of Tanshan to the ground. The death toll is considered one of the largest in history; Chinese authorities officially reported the death of 242 thousand people, but according to unconfirmed data, the death toll could reach 655 thousand. In addition, more than 700 thousand people were injured, and the area of damage to buildings even reached Beijing. Most people died as a result of the collapse of unreinforced block houses, and since the earthquake occurred in the dead of night, almost all people were at home and sleeping.
In addition, the epicenter was located on the territory of the city - in its southern part, and the source of the earthquake was only 9 kilometers from the surface of the earth. On the same day, another strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 occurred 43 kilometers southeast of Tanshan.

Tangshan earthquake(Chinese: 唐山大地震) - a natural disaster that occurred in the Chinese city of Tangshan (Hebei Province) on July 28, 1976. An earthquake of magnitude 8.2 on the Richter scale or 7.5 on the Kanamori scale. It is considered the largest natural disaster of the 20th century. According to official data from the PRC authorities, the death toll was 242,419 people, however, according to some estimates, the death toll reaches 655 thousand people.

At 3:42 local time, the city was destroyed by a strong earthquake, the hypocenter of which was at a depth of 22 km. Destruction also occurred in Tianjin and Beijing, located just 140 km to the west. As a result of the earthquake, about 5.3 million houses were destroyed or damaged so much that they were uninhabitable. Several aftershocks, the strongest of which had a magnitude of 7.1, led to even greater casualties.

More than 90% of all city buildings collapsed from the first shock. 15 hours later, it was followed by a powerful aftershock with M = 7.1, which buried under the rubble the workers clearing the rubble and those who were trapped, surviving the first impact. Strong aftershocks occurred until August 1. In total, about 130 of them were recorded with magnitudes up to 4.5 on the Richter scale. The earthquake was felt at a distance of up to eight hundred kilometers from the epicenter. The scale of destruction and the number of victims were unprecedented. The city was practically leveled to the ground. Some areas were covered with many huge cracks. One of these cracks swallowed up a hospital building and a train overcrowded with passengers.

The huge number of casualties was due to the fact that the main attack occurred at night, when almost all the inhabitants were asleep and because the residential buildings were of poor quality and overcrowded. According to the head of the Shanghai City Seismological Department, Zhang Jun, the main reason for the colossal destruction was the lack of necessary seismic protection measures during construction. Such measures should be implemented throughout the entire urban planning process - from design and construction to the reconstruction of buildings.

Nowadays, in the center of Tangshan, a stele reminds of the earthquake, as well as an information center dedicated to earthquakes. It is a kind of museum, the only museum in China on this topic.

The Tangshan earthquake is the second-deadliest in history, after the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake.

The disaster formed the basis of the plot of the feature film "Earthquake" directed by Feng Xiaogang.

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Notes

Excerpt describing the Tangshan earthquake

“Oh yes,” she said. “Didn’t you notice anything?” said her look.
Pierre was in a pleasant, post-dinner state of mind. He looked ahead and smiled quietly.
“How long have you known this young man, princess?” - he said.
- Which one?
- Drubetsky?
- No, recently...
- What do you like about him?
- Yes, he is a nice young man... Why are you asking me this? - said Princess Marya, continuing to think about her morning conversation with her father.
“Because I made an observation, a young man usually comes from St. Petersburg to Moscow on vacation only for the purpose of marrying a rich bride.
– You made this observation! - said Princess Marya.
“Yes,” Pierre continued with a smile, “and this young man now behaves in such a way that where there are rich brides, there he is.” It’s like I’m reading it from a book. He is now undecided who to attack: you or mademoiselle Julie Karagin. Il est tres assidu aupres d'elle. [He is very attentive to her.]
– Does he go to them?
- Very often. And do you know a new style of grooming? - Pierre said with a cheerful smile, apparently in that cheerful spirit of good-natured ridicule, for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.
“No,” said Princess Marya.
- Now, to please Moscow girls - il faut etre melancolique. Et il est tres melancolique aupres de m lle Karagin, [one must be melancholic. And he is very melancholy with m elle Karagin,” said Pierre.
– Vraiment? [Really?] - said Princess Marya, looking into Pierre’s kind face and never ceasing to think about her grief. “It would be easier for me,” she thought, if I decided to trust someone with everything I feel. And I would like to tell Pierre everything. He is so kind and noble. It would make me feel better. He would give me advice!”
– Would you marry him? – asked Pierre.
“Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anyone,” Princess Marya suddenly said to herself, with tears in her voice. “Oh, how hard it can be to love a loved one and feel that... nothing (she continued in a trembling voice) you can’t do for him except grief, when you know that you can’t change it.” Then one thing is to leave, but where should I go?...
- What are you, what’s wrong with you, princess?
But the princess, without finishing, began to cry.
– I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. Don't listen to me, forget what I told you.
All Pierre's gaiety disappeared. He anxiously questioned the princess, asked her to express everything, to confide in him her grief; but she only repeated that she asked him to forget what she said, that she did not remember what she said, and that she had no grief other than the one he knew - the grief that Prince Andrei’s marriage threatens to quarrel with his father son.
– Have you heard about the Rostovs? – she asked to change the conversation. - I was told that they would be here soon. I also wait for Andre every day. I would like them to see each other here.
– How does he look at this matter now? - Pierre asked, by which he meant the old prince. Princess Marya shook her head.
- But what to do? There are only a few months left until the year ends. And this cannot be. I would only like to spare my brother the first minutes. I wish they would come sooner. I hope to get along with her. “You have known them for a long time,” said Princess Marya, “tell me, hand on heart, the whole true truth, what kind of girl is this and how do you find her?” But the whole truth; because, you understand, Andrei is risking so much by doing this against his father’s will that I would like to know...
A vague instinct told Pierre that these reservations and repeated requests to tell the whole truth expressed Princess Marya’s ill will towards her future daughter-in-law, that she wanted Pierre not to approve of Prince Andrei’s choice; but Pierre said what he felt rather than thought.

At times, natural disasters are preceded by unusual phenomena. For example, the earthquake in Turkey on August 17, 1999, according to witnesses, began with mysterious lights: “They were unusually clear, round or triangular in shape, white, yellow, red and blue, and remained in the sky from 5 to 20 minutes. Before the tremors themselves, the seabed in Izmit turned red and the water temperature rose to 40–45 °C.”

Decades after the disaster, a bird park was created in the newly built Tangshan. It was opened on October 1, 2000, China's National Day. The green massif occupied an area of 15 thousand m2 and consisted of about 3,000 birds of 70 species. In the neighboring city of Tianjin, with a population of 5 million, which also suffered from the elements on the fateful day of July 28, 1976, a Memorial was erected in front of the Friendship Hotel in memory of the victims of the earthquake in Hebei Province.

1906, April 18 - an earthquake in America, as a result of which the city of San Francisco was destroyed - about 8,000 people died;
1908, December 28 - Fr. Sicily, Messina - more than 80,000 victims;
1920 - China - 200,000;
1923, September 1 - Japan, o. Honshu – 140,000;
1923 and 1939, China - 200,000 and 28,000 respectively;
1939, December 26 - Türkiye - about 30,000;
1960, February 29 - Morocco, Agadir - 12,000;
1960, May 22 - Chile - 10,000;
1962, September 2 - Iran - 12,000;
1970, May 31 (May 22?) - Peru - 60,000;
1976, February 4 - Guatemala - 22,000;
1990, June 21 - Iran - 50,000.

V. Sklyarenko

TANSHAN EARTHQUAKE

The largest natural disaster of the 20th century. An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.2 shook the Chinese city of Tangshan on July 28, 1976. Previously, this area was not considered an earthquake hazard. Beijing, located 140 km from the epicenter, was partially destroyed. In total, more than 5.2 million houses were damaged to such an extent that it was impossible to live in them.

The country's authorities declared about 243,000 people dead, approximately 164,000 wounded, more than 7,000 families missing, and 4,200 children orphaned. However, there are other estimates associated with a figure reaching 800,000 (sometimes the figure is 1 million) people killed and about the same number injured. Indirect evidence of the authorities underestimating the number of victims is the fact that the Chinese underestimated the power of the cataclysm (it was stated that the magnitude was 7.8). Some experts drew attention to the fact that the Chinese government never reported the number of victims; they learned about this only in 1988 from the Chinese seismological service. This “cunning” behavior of official China may be due to the fact that it was not possible to notify residents of the impending disaster, although a year before it, Chinese scientists, with the help of a new network of stations, were able to timely predict the earthquake in Haicheng and managed to evacuate the population from the dangerous area. In 1976 the system did not work.

According to the officially recognized number of victims, the disaster took 3rd place after the great Chinese earthquake of 1556 and the Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004 (the main destructive force here was the tsunami).

Some time before the tragedy, villagers noticed the restless behavior of dogs who did not want to eat, but preferred to howl, raising their heads to the sky. At first no one could understand what was going on. At first they thought it was some kind of disease affecting the animals. Clarity came only on July 28. In addition, the night before the cataclysm, a strange glow was observed in the sky (mysterious “earthquake lights”), fish jumped out of aquariums, chickens ran back and forth in panic, mice ran in flocks in search of shelter. In addition, the water level in the wells of villages neighboring Tangshan rose and fell several times before the disaster.

Many of those who survived the main shock were finished off by the second powerful shock of magnitude 7.1 that occurred on July 29. At this time, the survivors who were able to stand on their feet rummaged through the rubble in search of the wounded or at least some of their property. The disaster destroyed the local hydroelectric power station, collapsed bridges, and damaged reservoirs.

It was no longer possible to travel on roads and railways. This circumstance significantly hampered the activities of rescue teams trying to reach the destroyed city. There was no communication, and the capital of the state learned about what had happened only several hours later.

In the “northern capital of Chinese porcelain,” Tangshan, only a pavilion on the top of a mountain located in the center of the city remained intact. From here, from a bird's eye view, the endless ruins looked especially depressing. Here and there there were lonely trees. Western media, commenting on satellite images, sadly stated that the city had been wiped off the face of the Earth.

Before this, over 1.5 million people lived here. The city was a cluster of workers' settlements, which were overgrown with coal mines and enterprises. Probably, due to the characteristics of the main profession of local residents (miners), they are accustomed to confronting danger and difficulties, and helping each other in difficult situations. Most of those who got out from under the rubble were in a hurry to provide help to those in need. Thus, about 500,000 townspeople were saved on their own and with the help of other victims.

Since the city was completely destroyed by the earthquake, the number of victims is almost certainly much greater than was officially announced. In general, very little information was received from the disaster zone. Some spoke about restoration work, others about workers rescued at some mine. China "closed itself" and neglected any international assistance, considering it too humiliating. Therefore, the huge number of victims should not be surprising.

For some reason, the Chinese government, which tried to do everything on its own, did not bother to create sufficient reserves of food and materials in advance. The central authorities shifted the burden of responsibility to local administrations in the hope that they would know better what to do. But on the ground they were also at a loss. The army remained the only organized force in an extreme situation.

Tangshan is called the Phoenix City not only because of the mythical bird that, according to legend, once stopped at the top of the green mountain (Mount Phoenix) in the center of the city, but also because it was reborn from the ruins, like a phoenix from the ashes.

Eyewitnesses told how the restoration of Tangshan took place. First, builders rebuilt microdistricts in the suburbs, where people were resettled, and only then began work in the city center. The maximum number of builders reached 110,000 people. Hundreds of tower cranes and thousands of trucks were involved.

By the mid-1980s. the updated Tangshan is even better than before. The new houses now have modern infrastructure; no one uses coal for heating anymore. In 2003, the city was awarded the title of “National-Level Garden City” of China, and in 2004, the UN awarded Tangshan the “Best Example in Improving Living Conditions” award.

The Chinese called the year of the earthquake “cursed” because, in addition to the natural disaster, the entire country was rocked by serious political events taking place within the Communist Party. The tragedy aggravated the difficult economic situation of the state and served as one of the factors that convinced the people and government of the need for change. Soon, Chinese perestroika broke out.

The earthquake had a strong impression on the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. In the center of the revived Tangshan, there is a memorial stele and an information center dedicated to the event 40 years ago - a one-of-a-kind museum. In addition, in 2010, Chinese director Feng Xiaogang directed the Chinese blockbuster film drama Survivors of Horror (Tangshan Earthquake).

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