- Start
- Jul 27, 197690% CONFIDENCEfrom the source
The Tangshan Earthquake Levels a City of a Million
- A magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit the region around Tangshan, Hebei at 03:42:55 local time on 28 July 1976 — 19:42:55 UTC on 27 July. [S]
- Maximum intensity reached XI (Extreme) on the Mercalli scale. [S]
- Within minutes 85% of Tangshan's buildings collapsed or were rendered unusable, all services failed, and most highway and railway bridges collapsed or were seriously damaged. [S]
- The official count was 242,469 deaths, while historians accept at least 300,000 — the deadliest earthquake in recorded history apart from the famine deaths of the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake. [S]
- The USGS catalogue records the main shock as usp0000hjg, magnitude 7.5, 17 km northeast of Penguanzhuang. [1]
References 293% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]90%en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tangshan_earthquakeen.wikipedia.org· Posted Sep 21, 2026· Starts Jul 27, 1976 ✓· 50% of score
The source is explicit about both clocks: the quake hit "at 03:42:55 on 28 July (19:42:55, 27 July UTC) 1976". The pin is stored in UTC, so it falls on 27 July even though the earthquake is known by its local date of 28 July.
- [2]95%M 7.5 - 17 km NE of Penguanzhuang, Chinaearthquake.usgs.gov· Added Sep 21, 2026· 50% of score
The USGS catalogue entry for the main shock — needed because a separate M 7.4 aftershock later the same local day has its own record, and the two are easily confused.
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