At 14:28 on May 12, 2008, a Richter scale 7.8 earthquake occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan. The magnitude was the same as that of the Tangshan earthquake 32 years ago.
On July 28, 2006, He Yongnian, former vice president of the China Seismological Bureau, vice president of the Chinese Association of Old Science and Technology Workers, and president of the Earthquake Branch, was a guest of Xinhua News Agency when he reviewed the Tangshan earthquake with netizens 30 years later. At the time, he explained why the destruction caused by the Tangshan earthquake was so enormous, stating that "The Tangshan earthquake was 7.8 in magnitude, with an enormous amount of energy released due to the sudden rupture of rocks in the lithosphere, equivalent to 400 atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945."
On May 12, Deng Naigong, an earthquake expert at the Institute of Geology of the China Earthquake Administration, introduced to the Global Times reporter that there are two important indicators for measuring the degree of earthquake damage: magnitude and intensity. "Magnitude measures the energy generated by the earthquake, while intensity measures the degree of surface damage caused by the earthquake," said Deng Naigong, "An earthquake has only one magnitude, but different areas at varying distances from the epicenter have different intensities."