Earthquake and Mental Health

Earthquakes, as a nature disaster, not only causes deaths, physical disease, damage to the infrastructure and economic loss, it also keeps long-lasting Mental Health effects on individuals involved. There will always be cases of psychological disorders such as PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, cognitive disorder, personality disorders, and so on, especially with individuals dealing pre-existing conditions. At 3:42 am on July 28 1976, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Tangshan, an industrial city of 1 million people in northern China, which had been built on the unstable soil of the Luanhe River’s flood plain. Ninety-three percent of residential buildings and 78 percent of industrial buildings were completely destroyed. This alluvial soil liquefied during the quake, undermining entire neighborhoods. The entire earthquake lasted approximately 14 to 16 seconds and killed at least 242,000 people. Although earthquakes are among the most common and devastating natural disasters, relatively little attention has been paid to their mental health consequences and associated risk factors long time after earthquake. There have been few studies of post-earthquake psychological problems using randomly selected samples of earthquake survivors. Fortunately, we have done a lot of studies about mental disorders due to Tangshan earthquake in China.