Ran Guangqi

Early Life

Ran Guangqi was born in February 1927 in Li County, Hebei. A Communist Party member, he spent his career in Hebei's local party and government system, serving in the 1970s as Party secretary and Revolutionary Committee director of Qinglong Manchu Autonomous County, Hebei.

The Decision Behind the "Qinglong Miracle"

From 14 to 19 July 1976, Wang Chunqing, the Qinglong county science and technology commission official responsible for earthquake work, attended a national earthquake monitoring and forecasting conference convened by the State Seismological Bureau in Tangshan. There he learned of an informal assessment by the Bureau's analysis and forecasting office that a magnitude-5-or-greater earthquake could strike the Tangshan-Luan County area between 22 July and 5 August. Wang returned to Qinglong on 21 July and immediately reported this to Ran Guangqi. Despite the absence of any formal forecast document and the political risk of being accused of "spreading panic," Ran decided on the spot to establish an earthquake-preparedness command headquarters, personally taking charge, and on 24 July placed the entire county on emergency alert: residents were mobilized to leave unsafe housing and live outdoors under temporary shelter for several days, grassroots cadres kept round-the-clock watch, and all indoor gatherings were suspended. When the Tangshan earthquake struck in the early hours of 28 July, more than 18,000 buildings in Qinglong County collapsed or were severely damaged, yet among its population of 470,000 only one elderly person died, of a heart attack — an almost unheard-of near-zero casualty outcome for an area so close to the epicenter, later known as the "Qinglong Miracle."

Later Years and Posthumous Recognition

In 1977 Ran was transferred out of Qinglong County, subsequently holding leadership posts in Wangdu County and the Baoding region; in 1983 he became deputy chairman of the Xingtai Municipal CPPCC, retiring in 1988. The "Qinglong Miracle" received little official publicity for nearly two decades afterward. On the earthquake's twentieth anniversary in 1996, a United Nations-affiliated body invited a Qinglong delegation to an international disaster-reduction conference and presented Ran with a commemorative medal, recognizing the Qinglong experience as a model of combining scientific research with administrative action to reduce natural-disaster casualties. Ran died in Baoding on 25 January 2023 of a sudden pulmonary embolism, aged 95.