Xinhua Headlines: Five decades after devastating quake, Tangshan's unbreakable spirit lives on

* Half a century on, many of the Tangshan earthquake survivors have died or reached old age, but the 1976 earthquake remains vividly etched in the collective memory of Tangshan, and the city has continued to benefit from the spirit of solidarity and resilience forged in the post-quake reconstruction.

* Tangshan's recovery has not been in material terms alone. As mental health received greater attention in China, the city's long psychological recovery has also inspired reforms in China's response to natural disasters.

* Residents say the kindness and solidarity that once gave survivors the strength to carry on have continued to define the city.

TANGSHAN, Hebei, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Three days after an earthquake took away her parents, Dong Huijuan went back to the school where she taught. There was scarcely anything unscathed: its buildings had collapsed, desks lay broken, and many teachers and students were missing.

Dong, not yet 20 at the time, joined students and colleagues in pulling usable bricks from the ruins. With mud as mortar, corn and sorghum stalks as walls, and plastic sheets as window glass, they set up a makeshift classroom and resumed class.

Today, Dong, who has since devoted much of her career to disaster psychology, still recalls this moment with emotion, one of many poignant stories of how Tangshan City clawed its way out of the earthquake rubble.

At 3:42 a.m. on July 28, 1976, a magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit Tangshan, an industrial city in the northern province of Hebei. The deadliest earthquake since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, it killed more than 240,000 people and destroyed virtually all buildings in the city.

Half a century on, many of the earthquake survivors have died or reached old age, but the 1976 earthquake remains vividly etched in the collective memory of Tangshan, and the city has continued to benefit from the spirit of solidarity and resilience forged in the post-quake reconstruction.

Tangshan's recovery has not been in material terms alone. As mental health received greater attention in China, the city's long psychological recovery has also inspired reforms in China's response to natural disasters.

A CITY REBUILT

Tangshan's citizens today take pride in what they call the "quake-fighting spirit" -- the selflessness and solidarity shown in the disaster's immediate aftermath.

When the earthquake struck, Wang Huanming was 23 and worked in the Kailuan mining area. His mother had risen shortly after 3 a.m. to prepare breakfast for his early shift, and that coincidence of timing helped save their lives. "I heard a noise like a violent wind," Wang recalled. He reached for the door and escaped just as the house collapsed behind him.

After helping his family out of the ruins and finding them shelter, Wang headed for the mine at his father's urging. He joined about 10 young workers trying to drain water and protect underground equipment, wading through cold water and hauling sandbags despite an injured foot.

"There was no time or energy left for grief," Wang said. Work had to go on, even for those who had lost relatives. "Whether you could bear it or not, you had to."

Within days of the quake, rescuers and aid arrived in Tangshan from across the country. Among them were 100,000 soldiers from the Chinese People's Liberation Army, 30,000 technical workers and tens of thousands of medical workers.

Before their arrival, survivors searched for relatives and pulled people from the rubble -- self-rescue and mutual aid saved more than 400,000 people. Work units -- the institutions around which much of urban life was organized at the time -- distributed food and supplies and helped restore basic order.

Residents say the kindness and solidarity that once gave survivors the strength to carry on have continued to define the city.

"This is the resolve that the Tangshan people must pass down from generation to generation. The best way to carry that spirit forward is to make new history," said Wang Qingli, a worker who helped produce the city's first post-quake batch of steel 28 days after the disaster.

The reconstruction took about a decade, and by 1986, Tangshan's GDP had reached 6.744 billion yuan (approximately 1 billion U.S. dollars), 2.2 times its pre-quake level. In 1990, Tangshan received the United Nations Habitat Scroll of Honor, in recognition of its "massive reconstruction program to rebuild the city after the 1976 earthquake."

Over the decades that followed, the city continued to grow on the strength of its steel and coal industries, manufacturing base and port, while bravely embracing the nationwide transition toward high-tech and greener development. So far, Tangshan has phased out 63 million tonnes of steel production capacity while accommodating 1,840 high-tech companies.

In 2024, Tangshan's GDP topped 1 trillion yuan, making it the first city in the province to cross that threshold.

HEALING TRAUMA

In a sense, the earthquake also marked a turning point in the development of disaster psychology in China. Back then, companionship and collective support helped many people endure, but professional care was largely unavailable.

In a nonfiction book published in 2025 that details firsthand accounts of the earthquake, Yang Liyuan recalled working with other survivors to sift sand for reconstruction about a month after the quake. Work consumed their days; at night, fear and grief surfaced. One worker cried "Earthquake!" in his sleep, sending others rushing from their quarters.

Dong Huijuan said her own experience in Tangshan drew her to the study of disaster psychology. She knows all too well how painful it can be to revisit terrifying events.

"Back then, people paid little attention to mental health," she said, adding that, in hindsight, the best window for helping survivors in Tangshan may have been missed.

Data collected 20 years later supported her view. In 1996, a Tangshan health center surveyed 1,813 survivors and identified 402, or 22.2 percent, as suffering from what it termed "delayed stress disorder."

Dong earned her doctorate in disaster psychology in 2003 and went on to work with survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. By the time Wenchuan earthquake struck, she said, both the understanding of trauma and the practice of psychological intervention had advanced considerably.

Mental health now receives far greater attention in China. In 2025, the country launched a unified national mental health assistance hotline offering free services around the clock. Psychological support, once considered optional, is now a legally required part of emergency response plans.

When a magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck Dingri County in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region in January 2025, a psychosocial support team arrived at a temporary shelter in Tangren Village the next day. More than 40 of the roughly 270 displaced residents there were children.

Team members listened as the children talked about everyday life and organized games, film screenings, clay modeling and drawing. Child-friendly spaces were opened at relocation sites, while specialists later offered emotional support through painting and sand play. The support continued until reconstruction was complete and schools had reopened.

These changes heartened Dong. "Compared with the response to the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, the changes have been profound," she said, adding that her team has continued conducting follow-up visits with survivors of the 1976 earthquake in recent years.

One of them, identified by the pseudonym Li, lost both parents in the earthquake. When Dong first met Li several years ago, she found her struggling with complex trauma, prolonged grief and severe emotional exhaustion.

In recent years, Dong has followed up with Li every two to three months, providing emotional counseling and connecting her with community support. "They are not forgotten," Dong said.

(Reporting by He Yuzhe, Bai Lin, Ren Liying and Yang Fan)  ■