QINGLONG COUNTY: A Case Study of Effective Integration of Public Administration and Earthquake Science
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 (UNGP-IPASD) conducted a detailed study of Qinglong County between 1995-1996. This is Qinglong County's remarkable story. __________________________________________________
This study was conducted by Dr. Jeanne-Marie Col, UNDDSMS/DESA, and Jean J. Chu, Chinese Academy of Science. Funding was provided by the UNEPPA Trust Fund, for which the authors were grateful.
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.
Qinglong County began a campaign to educate the public on basic earthquake knowledge, precursory phenomena, and how toprepare for earthquakes. Over the next two years, county officials distributed more than 70,000 books and 14,000 exhibition posters, as well as presentedover 120 slide shows prepared by the State Seismological Bureau. By mid-1976, nearly every county resident knew something about earthquakes.
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.
SSB scientist Wang Chengmin
Local Administrator Wang Chunqing
Two weeks before the Tangshan earthquake...
In the evening of July 16, 1976, Administrator Wang Chunqing attended a conference organized by the State Seismological Bureau (SSB) for the North China-Bohai region. During this conference, scientist Wang Chengmin of the SSB's Analysis and Prediction Department spoke to about 60 participants. Young administrator Wang took detailed notes of the 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.
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.
| Businesses also relocated to outdoor locations where they continued their normal activities. |
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.
Fatalities in Tangshan area
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.
A Case of Effective Preparedness in Tangshan...
Dr. Dong Wu, a physician at Qinglong's Dazhangzi Hospital, had traveled 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 earthquake struck, he was able to dress quickly, woke his relatives up, and fled from the house. Except for one injury from a falling object, the family escaped unharmed.
20 Years later...
July 24, 1996
A slightly older Administrator Wang in 1996
PLA soldiers spoke of the mandatory evacuation before the earthquake
UNGP-IPASD led a delegation of international experts, headed by the Director of the UN International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), Dr. Olavi Elo (middle), to visit Qinglong County, ahead of the 20th Anniversary Commemoration of the Tangshan Earthquake. The team had the chance to speak with SSB's Wang Chengmin (3rd from left), the local administrator Wang Chunqing (1st on left), State Secretary Ren Guanqi (center), who ordered the evacuation of Qinglong County, as well as other witnesses and Chinese earthquake researchers. Dr. Jeanne Marie Col (middle), and Jean J. Chu (2nd from left), co-investigators for this UNGP-IPASD study, were the leaders of the expedition.
June-July 1995
Devastation of the Yunnan Wuding earthquake (1995)
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.
Tangshan Earthquake Memorial (2016)
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- Chronology of the Qinglong County experience, in Guidelines on Capacity Building for Disaster Management, UN DDSMS, NewYork, 1996.
- Interview with Dr. Jeanne-Marie Col on All Things Considered, National Public Radio (26 July 1996)
- China's Campaign to Predict Quakes, by Li Hui, with Jeffrey Mervis in Science (13 September,)
- Podcast interview (2017) with Mr. Long Ming Quan, a survivor of the Tangshan Earthquake.
- "Successful Earthquake Mitigation in Qinglong County during the Great Tangshan Earthquake: Lessons for Hurricane Katrina", Col, J.M., in the Chinese Public Administration Review (2007)
This webpage was created by Douglas Ling and Alicia Goldman-Angel, with contents provided by Liu Xiaohan and Xu Wenli of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology (Beijing, China), and Wang Chengmin of the State Seismological Bureau (China). The assistance of Joanne Sullivan and Carolyn Pfister are also gratefully acknowledged.