On July 28, 1976, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the sleeping city of Tangshan, in north China’s Hebei Province, which housed around 1 million inhabitants. The 15-second earthquake struck at 3:42 a.m., followed by a major aftershock measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale some 15 hours later, which increased the death toll. |
Considered the deadliest earthquake of the 20th century, the Tangshan temblor killed over 240,000 people, injured more than 160,000 and caused over 90 percent of the buildings to collapse.
After the earthquake, the rebuilding of Tangshan began quickly. The government resolved that Tangshan would be reborn, and the devastated city soon became a big construction site.
By June 1986, 10 years after the disaster, the rebuilding of an area of 18 square km had been completed, of which 11.22 square km were residential areas. A total of 230,000 families had moved into new houses, accounting for 98.5 percent of the total households.
In 1990, Tangshan was praised by the United Nations for its remarkable achievement in improving the living conditions of its residents. It was awarded the UN Habitat Scroll of Honor and the municipal government was chosen by the UN as an “outstanding organization contributing to human residence” for its reconstruction efforts.
After the rebuilding of Tangshan was basically completed at the end of 1986, the city started to witness rapid economic growth. In 1996, Tangshan was listed as one of China’s top 50 cities in terms of comprehensive strength. In 2001, the city’s gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded 100 billion yuan. During the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-05), local GDP grew at an average annual rate of 12.7 percent. By 2005, Tangshan’s GDP totaled 202.7 billion yuan, accounting for one fifth of the total of Hebei Province, with the per-capita GDP reaching 28,000 yuan.
|