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Global Programme Home
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Integration
of Public Administration and Earthquake Science: The Best Practice Case of Qinglong County
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 First seismograph invented by Zhang Heng (79-133a.d.)
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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.
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.
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Oct.10, 1996
Part of the following exhibit was presented at the Resumed Session of the 50th
UN General Assembly in New York, April, 1996
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Related events and publications
- Chronology of
the Qinglong County experience, in Guidelines on Capacity Building for Disaster Management, UN DDSMS, New York, 1996
- China's Campaign to Predict Quakes, by Li Hui, with Jeffrey Mervis in Science (13 September, 1996)
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1974
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Two years prior to the Great Tangshan
Earthquake...
The remarkable story of Qinglong County begins with State Council Document No. 69, issued two years earlier in 1974,
alerting public officials in the North China-Bohai region of a possible
magnitude 6 or greater earthquake. This national policy statement encouraged
counties to intensify efforts in disaster preparedness, detection of
earthquake precursors, public education and the strengthening of earthquake
disaster management offices.
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Qinglong County began a campaign to
educate the public on basic earthquake knowledge, precursory phenomena, and
how to prepare for earthquakes. Over the next two years, county officials
distributed more than 70,000 books and 14,000 exhibition posters, as well as
presented over 120 slide shows prepared by the State Seismological Bureau. By
mid-1976, nearly every county resident knew something about earthquakes.
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1975
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Sixteen county-, 42 commune-, and
442 village-level observation stations were established and staffed by
community volunteers. These lay stations watched for changes in color,
clarity, temperature, and level of water, as well as changes in animal
behavior, geoelectricity and geomagnetism.
In response to Document No. 69, Qinglong County set up an earthquake disaster management programme headed by
twenty-one-year-old administrator, Wang Chunqing.
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July 14-21, 1976
 Scientist
Wang Chengmin
 Administrator Wang Chunqing
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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.
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School classes were relocated and
held outdoors several days before the eventual earthquake. Students also
played an important part in the collection of data.
At the Longshan High School, teacher Gao Qianhong
assigned a student team to monitor instruments
measuring geomagnetism, crustal stress, and water-
well levels. Another team was assigned to observe
animal behaviors. While the instrument group did not
see any unusual signals, nocturnal animals like weasels
and rats were observed to move in broad daylight,
unafraid
of their human observers. Based on these observations
and administrator Wang Chunqing's recommendations,
Mr. Gao organized a round-the-clock earthquake watch
and took other preparedness measures.
At the insistence of students who observed
significant
changes in animal behavior, a school training workshop
on earthquake preparedness planned for July 28th was
moved to the 27th, one day earlier.
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July 24, 1976
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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.
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Volunteer earthquake monitoring
stations report:
From July 24th, natural spring water had
become
muddy and undrinkable.
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July 26, 1976
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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.
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Businesses also relocated to
outdoor locations where they continued their normal activities.
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July 28 03:42:56
 Fatalities in Tangshan area
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The earth started to move beneath Tangshan in the early morning hours of
July 28th...
At a depth of 11km directly under the city of Tangshan, the Great Tangshan Earthquake (GTE) unleashed a destructive power four hundred times
greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. Fatalities were sustained as far away as Beijing, about 200km west of Tangshan.
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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Near
the Epicenter...
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A case
of Preparedness in Tangshan...
Dr. Dong Wu of Qinglong's Dazhangzi Hospital had travelled to the city of Tangshan on the day of July 27th and stayed at his relatives' house that
night. He told them about the possibility of an earthquake and of Qinglong's
preparations. Following earthquake preparedness instructions, he kept his
clothes by his bedside. When the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck, he was able
to dress quickly, awaken his relatives and flee from the house. Except for
one injury from a falling object, the family escaped unharmed.
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To the
Present...
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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A
Recent Example
1995
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At a State Seismological Bureau
meeting on January 14, 1995, scientists pointed out that the southwest part of Yunnan Province was one of the areas where a serious earthquake might occur. Based on
anomalies recorded at 16 monitoring stations in June, 1995, scientists
alerted local administrators to the possibility of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake
in southwest Yunnan province before the middle of July.
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June-July 1995
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On June 24, 1995, public administrators informed the regional population of over
500,000 to intensify observations and to prepare for a possible major
earthquake. From June 30th to July 12th, three earthquakes of magnitude 5.5,
6.5, and 7.3 struck the area. Due to the timely actions of public officials,
only 11 lives were lost.
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July 28, 1996
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.
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