How much was lost in the Tangshan earthquake

On July 28, 1976, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Tangshan. The epicenter of the earthquake was located in the downtown area of Tangshan City. It was a rare urban earthquake disaster in China's history. In an instant, a city with a population of one million was reduced to rubble, and people's lives and property and national property suffered heavy losses. The cities of Beijing and Tianjin were severely affected. The earthquake damaged more than 30,000 square kilometers and was felt in 14 provinces, cities and autonomous regions, equivalent to one-third of the country's area. The earthquake struck late at night, and 80% of the people in urban areas were buried under rubble before they could react. The extreme earthquake zone included 47 square kilometers north and south of the Jingshan Railway. Almost all the buildings in the zone were destroyed. An 8-kilometer-long, 30-meter-wide crack in the earth cut through walls, houses, roads, and waterways. In and around the earthquake area, there were numerous fissure zones, sand spouts, blowouts, gravity collapses, tumbling rocks, slope failures, landslides, foundation subsidence, karst cave-ins, and collapses in hollowed-out areas. Earthquake **** caused 242,000 deaths, 164,000 people were seriously injured, only the Tangshan city area life-long disability of more than 1,700 people; destroyed 14.79 million square meters of public housing, collapsed 5.3 million residential houses; direct economic losses of up to 5.4 billion yuan. The city's water supply, power supply, communications, transportation and other lifeline projects were all destroyed, all industrial and mining production was halted, and all hospitals and medical facilities were destroyed. Seven passenger and freight cars and tanker trucks traveling during the earthquake were derailed. Two large highway bridges over the Ji-Canal and Luan River collapsed, cutting off highway transportation between Tangshan and Tianjin and Guanwai. The urban water supply pipeline network and water plant buildings, structures and water wells were severely damaged. Ground buildings and structures of Kailuan Coal Mine collapsed or were severely damaged, and underground production was interrupted, with nearly 10,000 workers trapped underground. Tangshan Iron and Steel Company was severely damaged and forced to stop production, with steel and iron condensed and cast in the furnace. The dams of three large reservoirs and two medium-sized reservoirs slipped and cracked, and the wave walls collapsed. 240 out of 410 small reservoirs were damaged by the earthquake. 60,000 wells were silted up and sandy, and the pipes of the wells were wrongly broken, which accounted for 67% of the total number of wells. More than 33,000 hectares of arable land were sand-pressed, and 47,000 hectares were flooded by salt water. More than 55,000 agricultural implements were destroyed. It killed 36,000 large livestock and 442,000 pigs. The environmental health of Tangshan City and nearby hard-hit counties deteriorated dramatically, and intestinal infectious diseases were especially prominent. After the quake, the Party Central Committee and the State Council quickly established an earthquake relief headquarters. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and rescue teams and materials from all over the country gathered in Tangshan in a steady stream, launching an unprecedented scale of intense relief work, controlling the situation in a timely manner and reducing casualties. Of the 600,000 people buried in the city, 300,000 were able to save themselves from danger. PLA units mobilized nearly 150,000 people. Tangshan airport took off and landed 390 airplanes a day. More than 3,000 people from the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan power grid formed an electricity repair team. More than 20,000 medical personnel from 13 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, the PLA and the railroad system formed nearly 300 medical and epidemic prevention teams. Airlifting seriously injured people to foreign provinces and cities for treatment, *** used 474 airplane flights and 90 helicopter flights; *** drove 159 special health trains. Governments at all levels have promptly solved the problems of drinking water, eating and clothing for the masses. Reconstruction of homes at the end of 1976 to start preparations, began in 1978, 10 years later a thriving new Tangshan appeared in the land of China.