People walk past the former library of the North China University of Science Technology that is kept as a memorial to mark the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, Hebei Province. More than 242,000 people died in that quake. Photo: Chen Heying/GT

 In the middle of the bustling campus of North China University of Science and Technology in Tangshan, a crumbling building stands as a stark reminder to a catastrophe that ravaged the industrial city and the region 40 years ago.

Now, leafy trees and bushes burst out of former cracks and crevices in the concrete library, which leans drunkenly, slabs of concrete piled up around its base. The library was just one of thousands of buildings destroyed and families shattered by the 7.8-magnitude Tangshan earthquake, which ripped apart the region in the early hours of July 28, 1976.

The massive tremor killed more than 242,000 people. It is estimated that 7,200 families were wiped out as their homes collapsed around them while they slept.

Today, the buzz in the rebuilt campus makes it hard to believe the extent of the tragedy that hit Tangshan, a key industrial city in North China's Hebei Province, if it wasn't for a charity sale that was commemorating the quake on campus.

Yin Tiejun, then a 26-year-old worker at Tangsteel Company, asleep in his dormitory, was crushed by falling debris as the building sank into the earth. After his rescue, he had no idea of the extent of his injuries - a spinal fracture that paralyzed him - until he was transferred to a hospital in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province from Beijing in early August.

Reluctant to face a life of living at home with his parents, Yin married a fellow ward-mate, Li Lixia, in 1983. Although both are wheelchair users, they were unwilling to let their injuries stop them from being parents, adopting their daughter in 1989.

Today, living in a disabled-friendly community, the couple is looking forward to taking care of their 3-month-old granddaughter.

"A family is incomplete until a couple has a child, who also brings hope for the future," Yin told the Global Times. Developing his skills as a calligrapher, Yin occasionally sold his work for charity, making donations to disabled and autistic children, as well as to the victims of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008.

Fu Pingsheng, 61, also lives in the same community referred to as a "convalescence village." He lost his parents in the earthquake and also suffered a spinal injury, confining him to a wheelchair.

"I was fortunate enough to survive," he said. 

Fu married in 1992 and made his living in many ways, from making deliveries on a tricycle to having a street stall. He likes to get out and about and keep up with the latest trends, and has organized a band, in which he plays the erhu, a two-stringed violin, for fun every Friday evening.

Resilient city

Tangshan thrived in the ruins like its tenacious citizens, resuming bicycle manufacturing one week after the earthquake, steel in 15 days and ceramics in 20 days, Chang Qing, a photographer who has recorded the vicissitudes of the city and people for 40 years, told the Global Times.

Enabled by the reform and opening-up policy adopted in 1978, the reconstruction started one year later. By 1986, almost half of the reconstruction was complete. More than 110,000 people came from all over China to aid the stricken city.

The fast-developing city's GDP reached 49 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) in 1995, 7.4 times greater than before the quake, boosted by heavy industry, particularly coal, steel and concrete. Ten years later, fiscal revenue and GDP per capita ranked first among the cities in Hebei, according to data from the local government.

Even before the earthquake, working in those industries still held a bright future.

"My salary [before the quake] at the steel factory was higher than workers in other sectors, although it was lower than my other colleagues," said Yin.

Nowadays, Tangshan is suffering from the twin dilemmas of the economic downturn and industrial restructuring.

However, the central government's plan to integrate the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area is expected to bring new prospects to Tangshan.

The city will turn emerging industries, such as high-end manufacturing, information technology, environmental protection and biological medicine into new economic pillars.

"The city is as resilient as before. I believe the anguish of industrial transformation is transitory," Chang said.