Quake echoes 1976 disaster
Seismic activity has persisted in Tangshan since deadly tragedy
Early on July 12, Wang Guizhi was squatting beside a faucet in her yard, filling a bucket with water, when the ground started to shake.
A door in front of her crashed open before the 58-year-old shouted “earthquake” to her husband, who was standing beside a gate at the end of their yard, about 5 meters away.
The couple’s one-story house with two bedrooms and a living room stands at the other end of the 40-square-meter yard.
A tarred path runs through the center of the yard, connecting the gate and the house. Chives, onions and corn are planted on both sides of the path.
“Go to the center of the yard and sit down quickly!” her husband yelled as he rushed toward her.
“We both sat down in the yard and saw our house shake from side to side,” Wang said, recalling the scene when a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck Qianweifengshan village in Guye district, Tangshan, Hebei province.
The quake, which occurred at 6:38 am, struck at a depth of 10 kilometers, the Ministry of Emergency Management said. The epicenter in Guye district is about 170 km southeast of Beijing and some 130 km northeast of Tianjin.
After a few seconds, the ground and house stopped shaking. The couple stood up and walked out to the street. “Our neighbors were there, talking about the incident,” Wang said.
After chatting with the neighbors for several minutes, Wang ran back to the house to check for damage. “There were no cracks and nothing had fallen down in the rooms,” she said.
The incident on July 12 was a reminder of previous occurrences, especially the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Tangshan in 1976, killing more than 240,000 people and injuring over 160,000.
“That quake left me with bad memories,” said Wang, who was 14 years old at the time.
The disaster, which buried Wang, her two younger brothers and younger sister, destroyed the family’s house, which was built from clay.
“We were fortunate. My father dug us out from the ruins, and we weren’t injured. But if the houses built today collapse, nobody will get out alive,” she said.
Since 1976, people in Tangshan, including Wang, have witnessed many smaller quakes. “We are experienced in them,” she said.
The recent quake was an aftershock from the 1976 disaster, Liu Jie, deputy head of the China Earthquake Networks Center, said on July 12, adding that another quake of more than 5 magnitude was unlikely to occur in the area in the short term.
Several groups of government teams were sent to check if anyone had been killed or injured on July 12. The teams also inspected properties for damage.
Wang Tong, a firefighter in Guye district, said he and his colleagues arrived at the epicenter at about 7 am.
He was among some 20 firefighters sent to homes in the area to carry out thorough checks for damage and also to see if there were casualties.
“We visited each household one by one to see if anyone was injured and if walls were cracked,” Wang Tong said, adding that firefighters checked 297 households in the epicenter, mainly in villages.
“I was relieved after finding that there had been no serious damage,” he said.
Wang Tong added that he had been worried initially, as it was only the second time that he had joined a team for earthquake rescue work in his 20 years’ service.
The first time was last year, when Tangshan was hit by a smaller quake. “(The July 12) quake was stronger than that one, and I was worried there might be injuries,” he said.
The 43-year-old, who grew up in Luannan county, Tangshan, was born in 1977, the year after the devastating quake 44 years ago.
“Although I didn’t experience it, for me it is an incident that will never disappear, just as it is to all other Tangshan residents,” he said.
He added that he has heard numerous stories of how people died in the quake and how others survived. “All Tangshan people are heroes,” he said.
Wang Tong said he was relieved that although the quake on July 12 was of a relatively severe magnitude, no casualties had been reported.
Jia Hongpu, head of the Emergency Rescue Department at the Hebei Earthquake Agency, said: “People in Tangshan do not panic that easily when quakes hit, because they have experienced many small jolts since 1976.”
Since that year, solidly constructed homes have been built in Tangshan and people have been told how to escape in a quake, Jia added.
Zhang Xin, a 20-year-old resident of Fengnan district, which neighbors Guye, said: “My bed was pushed up against a wall for several seconds ... bottles on a table shook violently, but this was only a small quake.”
Tang Linglin, a catering worker on a train operating between Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, and Qinhuangdao, Hebei, which stops in Tangshan, said he heard of the July 12 quake when the train traveling from Qinhuangdao to Chengdu in the morning was halted for several hours.
“I hope nothing bad happened,” Tang said that night after hearing that some of the passengers were heading to Tangshan for disaster relief work.
He added that when it comes to earthquakes, Tangshan and Sichuan are “like brothers and sisters”, as Wenchuan, Sichuan, experienced a devastating earthquake in 2008, which claimed more than 69,000 lives.
Having experienced frequent light tremors, Tang said people in both areas must be given more instruction about earthquakes.
By evening, 50 aftershocks had followed the morning quake. Forty-six of them were less than 1 magnitude, two were between 1 and 1.9 magnitude and the remaining two between 2 and 2.9, according to the Hebei provincial earthquake agency.
No casualties had been reported as of noon on July 13, the agency said, adding that thorough checks had been made in the epicenter and areas within a 300-kilometer radius.
“We often hope for the best while preparing for the worst,” Tang said.