China's premier travels in Xi's stead for anniversary of 1976 quake
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Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China May 14, 2026. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/Pool
BEIJING, July 28 (Reuters) - China's No.2 leader, Premier Li Qiang, visited the city of Tangshan on Tuesday for the 50th anniversary of a 1976 earthquake that killed a quarter of a million people - a trip usually made by Chinese presidents.
Li paid his respects on President Xi Jinping's behalf, state media said, while Xi hosted Slovak President Peter Pellegrini in Beijing.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake was one of the deadliest in recorded history, killing over 242,000 people in the Tangshan region, seriously wounding 164,000 others and orphaning thousands, official tallies show.
Aftershocks have continued well into the 2020s, including a magnitude 5.1 tremor in 2020, a government seismologist has said.
Xi had visited the city, about 150 km (93 miles) east of Beijing, on the 40th anniversary of the quake, while then-presidents Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin had travelled there to mark the 30th and 20th anniversaries respectively.
The 73-year-old has become more selective in his trips out of the capital. While he used to visit around a dozen countries a year in the pre-pandemic years, he has only made one overseas trip so far in 2026.
Li laid a wreath to honour the victims and rescue workers who lost their lives at a memorial in the city and bowed three times as a gesture of respect.
Li also went to a sanatorium visited by Xi in 2016 to meet survivors left paralysed by the disaster.
"General Secretary Xi Jinping cares deeply about all of you, and has kept your health and living conditions in mind," said Li. "This time he specifically entrusted me to come and visit you."
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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