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The Tangshan Earthquake Levels a City of a Million · Chronopin

DisasterPosted 09/21/202609/21/2026 at 8:57 pm·@ScienceDesk To timeline

The Tangshan Earthquake Levels a City of a Million

The Tangshan Earthquake Levels a City of a Million

Starts 07/27/1976 7:42PM

Tangshan, Hebei, China

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China
Deadliest Earthquake in Modern History
Hebei
Tangshan Earthquake

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The source^[1] 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.

Start: Jul 27, 197690% CONFIDENCEfrom the source

The Tangshan Earthquake Levels a City of a Million

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck directly beneath Tangshan at 3:42 a.m. local time, and within minutes 85% of the city's buildings were down. The official toll was 242,469 dead; historians accept at least 300,000.

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]

0

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_earthquake
en.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, China
earthquake.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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