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Early Warning Success for the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake: A Best Practice Integrating Public Administration and Science

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Early Warning Systems for Natural Disaster Reduction

Abstract

Public administrators of the Qinglong County were able to combine scientific information, public education, extensive preparation, and speedy county-wide communications to prevent human tragedy during the Great Tangshan Earthquake (GTE) of 1976. About 470000 residents of the Qinglong County evacuated their homes just before the 1976 M 7.8 Tangshan earthquake (United Nations 1995, Wang 1991, Qian 1989, Qian 1986). No one in this county died from the destruction caused by GTE. In the counties surrounding Qinglong, however, nearly a quarter of a million people were crushed to death (Qian 1989, Chen et al. 1988, Qian 1986).

An earlier version of this paper and the accompanying posters were presented at the United Nations General Assembly 50th Resumed Session on Public Administration and Development, April 1996, and at the United Nations Conference on the Integration of Public Administration and the Science of Disasters, January, 1997.

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Col, JM., Chu, J.J. (2003). Early Warning Success for the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake: A Best Practice Integrating Public Administration and Science. In: Zschau, J., Küppers, A. (eds) Early Warning Systems for Natural Disaster Reduction. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55903-7_62

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55903-7_62

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-63234-1

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