This Day, That Year

Item from July 21, 1986, in China Daily: A bird's eye view of new Tangshan, 10 years after the catastrophic earthquake which demolished 97 percent of the city's buildings and killed 217,087 people when it occurred on July 28, 1976 ...

Instead of "being erased from the Earth", the new city is now two-fifths larger than the old one and its population has grown to 1.385 million, 188,000 more than in 1975, with a per capita income last year of 679 yuan, 37.1 percent more than 10 years ago taking inflation into account, according to a report issued by the Tangshan Municipal Statistics Bureau.

China is an earthquake-prone country, with temblors mainly taking place in 23 seismic belts across its territory.