HONG KONG, April 3. /TASS/. The earthquake that rocked Taiwan Wednesday morning was roughly equivalent in magnitude to the blast produced by 32 nuclear bombs similar to the "Little Boy" atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, Go Kaiven, former head of the seismological center of Taiwan’s Central Meteorological Administration, said.

According to him, as reported by the island’s Central News Agency (CNA), "an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 is roughly equivalent to about 32 nuclear bombs [of the type dropped on Hiroshima]." At the same time, one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in Taiwan, which occurred in 1999, released energy equivalent to the explosion of 46 nuclear bombs, noted the specialist.

On Wednesday morning, the strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years rocked the island. Underground shocks with a magnitude of 7.2 in Hualien County, recorded at 07:58 a.m. (02:58 a.m. Moscow time), were felt throughout the island. According to seismologists, the epicenter was in the east coast of the island, 25 km southeast of Hualien City, and had a depth of 15.5 km. The earthquake was strongly felt in the provinces of Fujian and Jiangxi on China’s east coast.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were carried out by the US in August 1945 at the end of World War II with the officially declared objective of hastening Japan's surrender. The bombings of the two Japanese cities are the only examples in human history of the wartime use of nuclear weapons. As a result of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to various estimates, between 70,000 and 100,000 people died in a single day. By the end of 1945, the number of victims had increased to 140,000, due to those who subsequently died in the hospital from injuries and radiation. The total number of victims exceeds 350,000 to this day.