ocr: Due to its climate and geology, natural disasters are quite frequent in China. However, their impact is often made worse by human actions. Poor building standards helped push the death tollin the 1976 l'angshan earthquake to over 500,000.The economic policies of the 1950s turned drought into a famine, whichis estimated to have killedup to 100 million between 1959 and 1961. Economic growthi is the priority of China's leaders, who tend to view Western pressure for environmental controls with suspicion. As a result, industrial pollution and environmental degradation, already widespread, are incre ...
