Today is the 30th anniversary of the 20th century’s deadliest earthquake, which struck the city of Tangshan, China in the dead of night, with the power of 400 atomic bombs. The quake claimed the lives of a quarter of the city’s million residents. Some sources estimate the death toll as much as three times higher. The Maoist government had ignored warnings from scientists, who noted the rising seismic activity, choosing to focus on internal disputes and perception shaping instead. They also refused all foreign aid offered to them, although around 165,000 people were recorded as being severely injured, a spokesman for the Red Flag journal declaring: “Any grave natural disaster can be overcome with the guidance of Chairman Mao”.

Rowan Callick reports on the cover-up existing to this day in The Australian:

Coalminer Li Yulin, aged 41, clawed his way out of his collapsed home in his underwear and stumbled towards the nearby Kailuan mine. He flagged down the red mine ambulance that was speeding towards him.
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They drove into the heart of Beijing, arriving at 8am at Zhongnanhai, the leaders’ compound next to the ancient imperial Forbidden City. Dozens of armed soldiers surrounded them. When they had explained their mission, two policemen led them to a reception room where they met vice-premier Ji Dengkui, whom Li recognised from newspaper photos.

“I cried in excitement and he held me in his arms,” Li said. “I felt like a lost son meeting his mother again. I thought, ‘The people of Tangshan are saved.”‘

Li and driver Cui breathlessly reported what they knew of the disaster, concluding by shouting: “Long live the Communist Party. Long live Chairman Mao.” Li lost 22 family members in the earthquake, including his parents and his eldest son, aged 15.

How did the leaders in Zhongnanhai, mesmerised by their own Cultural Revolution endgame and riven by rivalry, respond to the almost supernatural expectations of Li and Cui? Slowly and inadequately.

Mao’s fourth wife, Jiang Qing, one of the Gang of Four, took charge of the rescue efforts, focusing on propaganda rather than practical needs. The next day the story from the official Xinhua newsagency, which still operates today, was headed by a Maoist slogan: “Humans must have the strength to subdue the heavens.” It focused on Mao’s leadership against such disasters.

The People’s Daily newspaper, which also still operates, reported how brave survivors had gathered to criticise Deng Xiaoping’s revisionism. A party member was praised for choosing to rescue the communist branch secretary despite hearing cries from his trapped son and daughter. By the time he returned home, the children were dead.

It took a week for the People’s Liberation Army to bring cranes to the disaster site, by which time almost all the survivors under the rubble had fallen silent, as aftershocks kept hitting the beleaguered city.
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After Zhang Qingzhou published a novel, on the 20th anniversary, about the earthquake that destroyed his home when he was 16, he was contacted by a reader claiming the disaster had been predicted, as had another earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale 17 months earlier, near the northeastern city of Haicheng, where local officials had been warned and taken precautions, restricting the death toll to 2000.
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Zhang followed up his reader’s leads, speaking with Yang Youchen who, as head of the China Earthquake Administration’s office in Tangshan, had predicted at a meeting early in 1976 that evidence from more than 40 seismic monitoring posts indicated a severe earthquake was due in July or August within a 50km radius of Tangshan.

Yang was punished for his prediction by being sent to a school for unsound cadres. When he repeated his warning at a China Seismological Bureau meeting in Jinan in May, he was removed.

Zhang says the people who succeeded Yang “died in the earthquake, burying his warnings with them”. The cover-up became public when Zhang’s book was published, after a battle with authorities. It soon sold out and reprints have been officially banned.

In Tangshan Apocalypse Zhang wrote that Geng Qingguo, of Beijing’s earthquake forecast team, had predicted the area around Beijing might suffer an earthquake as strong as 7 on the Richter scale, following the Haicheng event. Her reports were quashed by the national bureau.

Geng wrote to Xinhua newsagency criticising her boss, Mei Shirong, who responded that “Geng recklessly made trouble for me. Beijing is the capital. Words must be used with more caution here.”

The warnings came thick and fast in July, Zhang says: from a seismic monitoring post at Kailuan coalmine on July 6, from Zhao Gexhuang mine post and from Beijing’s earthquake forecast team on July 14, from Hongwei middle school post on July 16, from Tongxian county earthquake station on July24 and from Ma Jiagou mine post just 11 hours before the quake.

Zhang says Wang Chengmin, a national seismological bureau researcher, wanted to report the heightened activity, but, he told Zhang, the bureau’s leaders were too busy “criticising Deng Xiaoping and rightism” to pay attention.

Academic discussion had been replaced by a determination “to cover up the truth and to control public opinion”, Wang said. “Certainly it would have been possible to send a warning to people in Tangshan.”

Bizarrely, the handling of the same earthquake in Qinglong County, just 115 km from Tangshan, is hailed by the UN as a case of “public administration best practice”. In 1996 the UN Global Programme for the Integration of Public Administration and the Science of Disasters (UNGP-IPASD), released a report titled “Integration of Public Administration and Earthquake Science: The Best Practice Case of Qinglong County”:

The magnitude 7.8 Great Tangshan Earthquake (GTE) occurred under the city of Tangshan, China, on July 28, 1976. When the dust settled, a quarter of a million people had died, and only a small handful of buildings were left standing. Emerging from this tragedy is a public administration best practice: public administrators of Qinglong County integrated scientific knowledge and monitoring by lay public, and prepared for the Great Tangshan Earthquake. Although 180,000 buildings in the county were destroyed, not one life was lost in the county due to the devastation (one person had a heart attack) while over 240,000 people died in surrounding areas.

“Surrounding areas” of course primarily refers to the flattened city of Tangshen, possibly the 20th century’s best example of public administration worst practice.

The UN Global Programme for the Integration of Public Administration and the Science of Disasters conducted a detailed study of Qinglong County between 1995-1996. This is Qinglong County’s remarkable story.

Two weeks before the Tangshan earthquake…
Administrator Wang Chunqing attended a conference organized by the State Seismological Bureau (SSB) for the North China-Bohai region. During this conference, on the evening of July 16, 1976, scientist Wang Chengmin of the SSB’s Analysis and Prediction Department spoke at an informal meeting attended by sixty conference participants. Young administrator Wang Chunqing was among the audience. He took detailed notes of the scientist’s presentation, including this entry:

“…There is a strong possibility of a magnitude 5 earthquake from July 22 to August 5, 1976 in the Tangshan region. A magnitude 8 is also likely in the second half of ‘76. Preparations should be made immediately…”

On July 21, 1976, administrator Wang Chunqing returned to Qinglong County. He reported on the Tangshan conference, highlighted the talk given by scientist Wang Chengmin, and included updated information from the county’s 16 lay monitoring stations. Public officials of Qinglong County took the report very seriously and acted upon the information immediately.
School classes were relocated and held outdoors several days before the eventual earthquake. Students also played an important part in the collection of data.
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An official early warning from the Chinese Communist Party Committee of Qinglong County was issued advising people to prepare for a possible devastating earthquake.

The County government took advantage of a planned agricultural meeting to publicize the earthquake warning. Telephone and public announcement systems were also used to broadcast the alert.

Volunteer earthquake monitoring stations report:

From July 24th, natural spring water had become muddy and undrinkable.

By July 26th, temporary earthquake tents were set up. Led by County Secretary Ran Guangqi, who moved into an earthquake tent himself, over 60% of Qinglong County’s more than 470,000 residents moved out of their homes. Those who did not move were instructed to keep their doors and windows open at all times to avoid being trapped in case of an earthquake.
Businesses also relocated to outdoor locations where they continued their normal activities.
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In Qinglong County (115 km from Tangshan), more than 180,000 buildings were destroyed by the GTE; over 7,000 of these totally collapsed. However, only one person died, and he died of a heart attack. Meanwhile, in the city of Tangshan and in all its other surrounding counties, more than 240,000 people were crushed to death and 600,000 were seriously injured. Five hours after the earthquake, Qinglong County dispatched the first medical team to the disaster zone, and within a very short time, sent relief teams to Tangshan to help with rescue work and transport of the wounded.
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In the twenty years since the Great Tangshan Earthquake, the Chinese have strengthened their capacity to mitigate earthquake disasters from the perspectives of both science and public administration. Successes in these areas have resulted in fewer fatalities during earthquakes.
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On this twentieth anniversary of the Great Tangshan Earthquake, we look forward to the day when communities will be able to reduce loss of lives from natural disasters because of the lessons learned from Qinglong County.

It should be noted that the above presentation was designed for the UNGP-IPASD by members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology and the State Seismological Bureau, also of China.

The contrast between the stories of these two communities is a most tragic irony.

Forewarning relay and preparation were not the only problems in Tangshan. The BBC reported on this day 30 years ago:

The survivors of the Tangshan quake are living in tents and are expected to be moved to winter shelters, the New China news agency has reported. Aircraft and lorries have been taking large quantities of relief supplies to help the relief effort.

The authorities later hope to move people to simple houses, which can withstand tremors and are warm and rainproof before winter sets in.

Chinese officials have rejected any offers of help from the outside world, saying that survivors have enough to eat and wear and there are sufficient medical supplies and doctors in the city.

Well, perhaps not:

One week [after the quake], Tan [Pengru] walked down Victory Street on crutches. The four-lane street was lined with dead bodies, barely leaving room for a bicycle path. Sometimes, the corpses were stacked into piles, and in between them, survivors were cooking their meals in makeshift stoves, oblivious to the horror and the stench that permeated the air.

There was also a short period of lawlessness when food and clean water were extremely scarce. “We had airdrops of food, but people had to fight for them. There was occasional violence,” he sighed. Fortunately law and order was quickly restored with the help of the army that was pouring into the city and mounting a mammoth rescue effort.

Adding insult to injury, two years ago a “memorial” wall was built in Tangshan out of three granite blocks, with families being charged a cost of 1000 RMB to have a perished loved one’s name displayed on it. Or a generous 800 RMB for a place on the back of the wall. Needless to say, a not uncommon view of the residents of Tangshan is to see this as “using a disaster as a gimmick to make money”.

Tangshan before the quake:

After the quake:

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Children outside a partially collapsed school:

The memorial wall built in 2004.

Tangshan today:

The memorial where commemorations were held today:

“People visit an electronic map during an exhibition marking the 30th anniversary of an earthquake in Tangshan City”:

1970’s Chinese propaganda poster – “earthquake prediction efforts relied extensively on the peasants’ observation of livestock behavior”:

Disaster relief propoganda posters: