唐山大地震40周年

JN: Known as the Great Tangshan Earthquake, the tremors occurred at around 3 am on July 28th, 1976, in the industrial city of Tangshan. Around one quarter of the city’s one million inhabitants were killed. BK: This was the deadliest earthquake of the modern era, killing hundreds of thousands. But while it was major in terms of size, it was not one of the strongest, coming in at 7.8 magnitude. Why was the death toll so high? VG: The timing when the earthquake took place, very early in the morning, in a very hot summer day, made the situation much worse. I think [was] when most of the people were sleeping. Further, I think Tangshan’s population density was very high, and at that time, the quality of the buildings in the city actually was relatively low, and it’s not earthquake-[proof]. BK: There were warnings of seismic activity before the earthquake with release of gases, well water going up and down and animals acting erratically. How would you evaluate the preparedness before the quake? VG: I think the fact that some scientific teams had come up with evidence about the possibility of a upcoming earthquake, but their warnings were actually disregarded by the government authorities. Now, one fortunate thing was that there was a county in Tangshan where the government leaders actually picked up the warning, and gave the warning to the people. In that particular county, which was very close to the epicenter, not a single life was lost, and it also gave hope that we need to be on constant alert and when we discover signs of bad things which may happening, we need to give full attention to such evidence. LK: Well, then, 40 years later, how much do you think the earthquake is part of the identity of Tangshan the city? VG: We have been made humble, I think, as human beings, in front of the almighty destructive force of mother nature. And I think we need to keep this spirit of humility, and we need to deal with nature when it unleashes so much wrath and destructive force with all respect and humility that we can come up with, and we need to show more love and respect for human life, and we need to really treat the relations between human beings and nature, really, really carefully. And we need to take all the precautions, and the government agencies in particular, need to be on full alert and give out warnings to the population, as early as possible so as to minimize human losses and destruction of property. LK: Compared to what happened in the 2008 tragedy that happened in Wenchuan, China has come a long way. What areas do you think we can still improve? VG: Many areas. For example, in terms of beefing up the quality of the buildings, in coming up with more scientifically detailed building standards for example so that buildings will be more earthquake-[proof] for example, and in that regard, I think we can learn a lot from countries, especially like Japan, which have really come up with very high standards in terms of building codes, etc., which will make sure that the buildings in many cases can still survive a major earthquake, [LK: Yes] and I think China can really learn a lot in this regard and become much more prepared.