12th August 2024: digital purchasing is currently unavailable on Cambridge Core. Due to recent technical disruption affecting our publishing operation, we are experiencing some delays to publication. We are working hard to restore services as soon as possible and apologise for the inconvenience. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
The Chinese term pu-cho (“catch”) an earthquake expresses the Chinese Government's resolve to save lives and property by applying the political techniques of mass mobilization to improve upon the predictive accuracy achievable with fine instruments and professional methods alone. To be more specific, during the most critical stage of the shortrange prediction process the public can contribute large numbers of useful observations not requiring ultra-sensitive instruments.
1. Our delegation, the second group of American seismologists to visit China sponsored by the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, a joint undertaking of the National Academy of Sciences and the Social Science Research Council, was there from 12 to 30 June 1976. Our itinerary included Peking, Shenyang, Anshan, Ying-k'ou, Dairen and Shanghai. The 10-man delegation included eight geologists and geophysicists and Professor Ralph Turner of UCLA, a sociologist specializing in collective behaviour during natural disasters. The full technical report appears as “Prediction of the Haicheng earthquake,” EOS, Vol. 58, No. 5 (05 1977), pp. 236–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I wish to thank Professor Francis Wu of SUNY-Binghamton, a member of our delegation, for many helpful comments on the first draft of this paper. All remaining errors of fact and interpretation, however, are my responsibility alone.
2. New China News Agency (NCNA), 3 April 1976.
3. NCNA, 4 April 1976.
4. Schurmann, Franz, The Logic of World Power (New York: Pantheon, 1974), p. 355Google Scholar.
5. Feng-ming, Chu, “An outline of prediction and forecast of Haicheng earthquake of M = 7·3,” in Muller, Paul M. (ed.) by Ohnuki, M. (transl.), Ong, Kwok Maw and Chao, ChiaChunProceedings of the Lectures by the Seismological Delegation of the People's Republic of China (Pasadena, California: California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1976), p. 15Google Scholar.
6. Liao-nan ti-chen (The Southern Liaoning Earthquake)(Peking: Shang-wu Yin-shukuan, 1975), pp. 33–34Google Scholar. Ti-chen wen-ta (Questions and Answers on Earthquakes)(Peking: Ti-chih ch'u-pan-she, 1975), pp. 92–93Google Scholar.
7. Wen-ta, pp. 93–94.
8. Wen-ta, p. 51.
9. “Report on the visit of the Canadian seismological mission to China, 20 October to 10 November 1975,” mimeo, . (Ottawa: Department of Energy, Mines & Resources, Earth Physics Branch, 1975), pp. 7 and 40Google Scholar.
10. Reuters, 29 July 1976.
11. Jen-min jih-pao (People's Daily), 17 June 1976, p. 4.
12. Earthquake Prediction and Public Policy, prepared by the Panel on the Public Policy Implications of Earthquake Prediction of the Advisory Committee on Emergency Planning, Commission on Sociotechnical Systems, National Research Council (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1975), pp. 67–95Google Scholar.
13. Proceedings, p. 5.
14. Report of the Canadian Mission, p. 42.
15. “A brief introduction of seismological work in the People's Republic of China,” unpublished report presented by Chinese scientists at Intergovernmental Conference on the Assessment and Mitigation of Earthquake Risks, Paris, 10 to 19 02 1976, p. 4Google Scholar.
16. Wen-ta, pp. 92 and 94.
17. Bennett, Gordon, Yundong: Mass Campaigns in Chinese Communist Leadership, (Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies. China Research Monograph No. 12, 1976)Google Scholar.
18. “Earthquake research in China,” EOS, Vol. 56, No. 11 (1975), p. 879Google Scholar.
19. Peking Review, No. 12 (1975), pp. 20–22Google Scholar.
20. Liao-nan, p. 46.
21. Kuang-ming jih-pao, 13 March 1975, p. 4. Peking Review, No. 12 (1975), p. 22Google Scholar. Kuo-feng, Hua, Let the Whole Party Mobilize for a Vast Effort to Develop Agriculture and Build Tachai-Type Counties Throughout the Country (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), p. 7Google Scholar.
22. Liao-nan, p. 52.
23. Peking Review, No. 12 (1975), p. 22Google Scholar.
24. Liao-nan, p. 20.
25. Peking Review, No. 12 (1975), p. 22Google Scholar.
26. Peking Review, No. 12 (1975), p.20Google Scholar.
27. Wen-ta, p. 92; Brief Introduction, p. 5.
28. Liao-nan, p. 43. “A brief summary of the work of premonitory observation, prediction and precautionary measures before the Haicheng earthquake, Liaoning Province, of Magnitude 7·3,” unpublished report presented by Chinese scientists at the Intergovernmental Conference on the Assessment and Mitigation of Earthquake Risks, Paris, lO to 19 02 1976, p. 9Google Scholar. Report of the Canadian Mission, p. 48.
