Earthquakes and earthquake engineering in China

Abstract

China is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world and has suffered many disasters. During the last twenty years, especially since the Tangshan earthquake of July 1976 which killed 242,000 people and disabled almost 200,000 people, the Chinese government and the whole society have paid more attention to and made a huge effort to deal with earthquakes. Earthquake engineering became an essential project in the whole country and much more progress has been made since then. In this paper, some brief information about Chinese earthquakes and earthquake engineering is given. It is a simple introduction only, to give a general understanding of China's earthquake problems.