A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck the industrial city of Tangshan before dawn, destroying most of its buildings and killing an officially revised figure of about 242,000 people, one of the deadliest earthquakes of the twentieth century. The unreinforced masonry and brick structures of the dense city offered little resistance. Tangshan was subsequently rebuilt to higher seismic standards as a planned new city. The disaster came amid the political uncertainty of Mao's final months.
It forced seismic safety and resilient reconstruction onto the agenda of Chinese urban building, prefiguring later quake responses.
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