A memorial park is to be built on the earthquake ruins in China's northern city of Tangshan which saw 240,000 people lost their lives 31st years ago.

 

As of Friday, the city's urban planning bureau had received 222 designs from 15 countries and regions for the planned memorial park, said Wang Zhengying, vice director of the bureau.

 

The industrial city of Tangshan in Hebei Province, about 200 km to the east of Beijing, was struck by the devastating earthquake in the early morning of July 28, 1976.

 

Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, the quake killed 242,769 people and injured 164,851 others that year.

 

Wang said the park, covering about 40 hectares, is to be built around the ruined site of Tangshan Rolling Stock Plant.

 

Co-sponsored by the Architectural Society of China, the park will be made a museum of earthquake science, and a mourning place is to be built for the public to pay tribute to the quake victims, said Wang.

 

A penal of seven experts including Song Chunhua, former vice minister of construction, and Michael Broshar, vice president of the American Institute of Architects, are going to decide on the champion design, according to Wang.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 29, 2007)