China has found what it termed 50 "hazardous sources of radiation" due to last week's earthquake, a senior official said on Friday, though he insisted the situation was under control.

The disaster area is home to China's chief nuclear weapons research lab in Mianyang, as well as several secretive atomic sites, but no nuclear power stations.

"It is now quite clear," Khrushchev went on, "that the U.S. is not the world's most powerful military power. We are not trying to sweat anybody, but these are the facts." Rattling his rockets in the style he used to assail Western "military circles" for doing a few years ago, Khrushchev promised to "wipe from the face of the earth" any aggressor, and boasted: "Though the weapons we have now are formidable indeed, the weapon we have today in the hatching stage is even more formidable. The weapon, which is being developed and is, as they say, in the portfolio of our scientists and designers, is a fantastic weapon." (U.S. Atomic Physicist Ralph E. Lapp guessed that the Russians might be planning an H-bomb to orbit the earth indefinitely, ready on signal to plunge down on any terrestrial target.)

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1976: Chinese earthquake kills hundreds of thousands
Hundreds of thousands of people are feared dead following an 8.3 magnitude earthquake in China.

The quake has virtually destroyed the city of Tangshan, north-east of Beijing, and Western sources believe the death toll may be much higher than the official figure of 240,000. Some believe the figure is more like 750,000.

The force of the quake has been so strong that people are reported to have been thrown into the air after roads, bridges, railway stations, homes and factories were completely destroyed.

The quake has also knocked out power throughout the city, making rescue efforts difficult

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The earthquake occurred directly under Tangshan at a depth of 8km (5 miles).

A magnitude 7.1 aftershock 15 hours later caused further destruction and killed many people trapped in collapsed buildings.

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The night preceding the earthquake, July 27-28, many people reported seeing strange lights as well as loud sounds. The lights were seen in a multitude of hues. Some people saw flashes of light; others witnessed fireballs flying across the sky. Loud, roaring noises followed the lights and fireballs. Workers at the Tangshan airport described the noises as louder than that of an airplane.2

history1900s.about.com...

28 July 1976

"Just before the first tremor at 3:42 am, the sky lit up like daylight. The multi-hued lights, mainly white and red, were seen up to 200 miles away. Leaves on many trees were burned to a crisp and growing vegetables were scorched on one side, as if by a fireball."

Some New Details on China's Quake

The Russian Woodpecker was a notorious Soviet signal that could be heard on the shortwave radio bands worldwide between July 1976 and December 1989. It sounded like a sharp, repetitive tapping noise, at 10 Hz, giving rise to the "Woodpecker" name. The random frequency hops disrupted legitimate broadcast, amateur radio, and utility transmissions and resulted in thousands of complaints by many countries worldwide.

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