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Great Events from History: The 21st Century (2000-2016)

Earthquake in China Kills More than 80,000 People and Leaves 5 Million Homeless

by Robert S. Carmichael

On May 12, 2008, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck Sichuan province in southcentral China. While not a record-setter for magnitude, its relatively shallow focus and location in a vulnerable region resulted in widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure. Tremors were felt in the capital of Beijing and even as far away as Thailand and Vietnam. It is ranked as the 21st deadliest earthquake in human history. There were at least 80,000 deaths, including thousands of schoolchildren who perished when poorly constructed school buildings collapsed.

Also Known As: Great Sichuan earthquake; Wenchuan Great Earthquake

Locale: China; Sichuan province; epicenter in Wenchuan country, Ngawa Prefecture

Categories: Natural Disaster; Government and politics

Summary of Event

The Great Sichuan earthquake took place on May 12, 2008, at precisely 2:28:01 in the afternoon (China Standard Time). The underground rupture lasted about 2 minutes, with most of the energy released in the first 80 seconds. The confirmed number of deaths stood at 69,195, but an additional 18,392 people were missing. At least 374,000 were injured. Four-fifths of the structures in the region of the epicenter were flattened; whole villages and towns in the mountainous terrain were destroyed. At least 5 million people were left homeless. The rugged terrain made search, rescue, and recovery extremely difficult. This was the worst earthquake to strike China since 1976, when the Tangshan earthquake killed 240,000 people.

Sichuan province is located between the Himalayas on the west and the Yngui plateau to the east. The epicenter of the earthquake was about 50 miles west-northwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital. An estimated 15 million people lived in the earthquake’s affected area. The release of energy was felt in a large area, causing some office buildings to sway noticeably in Beijing (930 miles away) and Shanghai (1,060 miles away). Underneath Sichuan province, there are a number of faults, which are components of the Longmenshan fault system. Seismic analysis identified the earthquake’s energy source as coming from the norther push of the Indian plate when it strikes into the Eurasian plate. Seismic activities were concentrated along the Yingxiu-Beichuan fracture.

For several months, there were at least 300 major aftershocks, with the largest having a magnitude of 6.0. These caused further casualties and damage. The massive damage to houses and other buildings happened in part because the earthquake occurred in a largely rural, poorer region of villages with structures often made of unreinforced mud bricks—not designed to withstand shaking. China had not established an adequate seismic design code until after the devastating 1976 Tangshan earthquake in northeast China. Older and small structures, especially the rural provinces, seldom had good design and sturdy construction.

The death toll included, tragically, as many as 10,000 or more students caught in many collapsing schools. The actual toll is uncertain, because the local officials and government muzzled public discussion of inadequate, even shoddy, school construction and the related casualty numbers. There was much discussion—locally by some Chinese officials and by foreign observers and consultants—about the extent to which the poor construction and design of the schools was to blame for so many schools collapsing.

Sichuan school girls the day before the earthquake (Wikimedia Commons).

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Another consequence of the earthquake shaking was widespread landslides, due to the main shock and aftershocks, with the destabilized slopes in steep and rugged terrain. Within two weeks of the initial large earthquake, thirty-four rivers had been blocked (dammed) by landslides. Some rivers formed “quake lakes,” with water filling up behind the debris dams. These massive concentrations of waters created threats of floods for the many people living downstream. For one such lake, 200,000 people were evacuated until the dammed river could be restored to normal flow with draining of the impounded water. As landslides continued, 158 earthquake relief workers were killed as they worked to repair damaged roads.

Earthquake in China Kills More than 80,000 People

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Significance

The earthquake was the worse to strike Sichuan in more than 30 years. Following the disaster, scientists renewed their efforts to determine whether future quakes might be predicted with a degree of accuracy in the future. Six months after the earthquake, the Chinese government announced plans to spend about one trillion renminbi (c. US $145 billion) over the following three years to rebuild and upgrade the damaged area.

The news media’s reaction to the earthquake appeared to indicate that journalists were taking a more critical approach to governmental censorship than had been true in the past. Soon after the earthquake occurred, Chinese journalists responded quickly and resolutely. In the past, communist officials had suppressed such stories in order to “preserve stability” or “snuff our rumors.” For example, when typhoon Nina hit the mainland in 1975, the official newspapers never even reported on it.

Although it would be an exaggeration to suggest that China’s state-controlled press had ended its policy of suppressing criticism of governmental behavior and policies, the Washington Post reported that China’s “normally timid news media” had reported on the earthquake with “unprecedented openness and intensity.” This perhaps was evidence of further liberalization in the government’s willingness to accommodate Marxist-Leninist ideology to the practice of “watchdog journalism.”

Further Reading

1 

Bandurski, David, and Martin Hala, ed. Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases in Chinese Watchdog Journalism. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press, 2010. Finds that “China’s relatively transparent handling of the Sichuan earthquake in the early stages sharply departed from its approach to disaster stories in the past.”

2 

Chen, Kevin, Qiang Zhang, and Claire Hsu, ed. Earthquake Lessons from China: Coping and Rebuilding Strategies. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2016. A collection of articles by experts.

3 

Fan, Maureen. “Chinese Media Take Firm Stand on Openness about Earthquake.” Washington Post, May 18, 2008 (Web). The newspaper’s foreign service reports that journalists did not hesitate to disregard a directive from the propaganda department of the Communist Party Central Committee.

4 

Lo, Sonny Shi- Hing. The Politics of Crisis Management in China: The Sichuan Earthquake. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014. Treats the earthquake as a case study for the crisis management of the People’s Republic of China.

5 

Rae, Alison. Earthquakes and Volcanoes. London: Evans, 2009. The book provides a good explanation of earthquakes for general readers, and it includes a good summary of the Sichuan quake.

6 

Yang, Dongping. The China Environment Yearbook: From the Sichuan Earthquake to the Olympics. Brill, 201. Includes a good summary of the earthquake.

7 

Yong, Chen, and David C. Booth. The Wenchuan Earthquake of 2008: Anatomy of a Disaster. Beijing: Science Press & Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2011. A clearly written narrative with numerous photographs.

See Also:

December 26, 2003: Earthquake In Iran Kills More Than 26,000 People And Leaves 75,000 Homeless; December 26, 2004: Indian Ocean Earthquake Produces Tsunami That Kills Over 230,000 People; October 8, 2005: Kashmir Earthquake Kills 80,000 People and Leaves 4 Million Homeless; January 12, 2010: Massive Earthquake in Haiti Kills Over 220,000 People; March 11, 2011: Tsunami In Japan Kills 15,894 People And Causes Meltdowns Of Power Plants; April 25, 2015: Nepal Earthquake Kills 9,000 And Leaves 3.5 Million Homeless.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Carmichael, Robert S. "Earthquake In China Kills More Than 80,000 People And Leaves 5 Million Homeless." Great Events from History: The 21st Century (2000-2016), edited by Thomas Tandy Lewis, Salem Press, 2017. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GE21A_0242.
APA 7th
Carmichael, R. S. (2017). Earthquake in China Kills More than 80,000 People and Leaves 5 Million Homeless. In T. T. Lewis (Ed.), Great Events from History: The 21st Century (2000-2016). Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Carmichael, Robert S. "Earthquake In China Kills More Than 80,000 People And Leaves 5 Million Homeless." Edited by Thomas Tandy Lewis. Great Events from History: The 21st Century (2000-2016). Hackensack: Salem Press, 2017. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.