reports outside of China came on 28 July 1976 from the International Tsunami Information Center, reporting that a "violent" earthquake, initially estimated at magnitude 8.1, had struck "in the vicinity of Peking" (Beijing). Center Director Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis was reported as saying that "if the quake hit in a populated area reports of considerable damage could be expected." News reports the next day located the quake "about southeast of Peking and northeast of Tientsen" (Tianjin); i.e., "almost precisely in Tangshan". The Chinese Communist party's Central Committee also broadcast a statement that the quake "caused great losses to people's life and property". One of the first reports from Tangshan said "nearly every building in the city ... was flattened." There were several reports of 50 people killed in Beijing, a from the epicenter. According to author Stephen Spignesi, a "couple of days" after the quake Dr. Pararas-Carayannis gave United Press International (UPI) an estimate of to deaths, based on a similar sized earthquake in Shaanxi province in 1556 that caused 830,000 deaths. Pararas-Carayannis' current web page says only that "it was fairly accurately estimated that there were at least people dead," without mentioning by whom or on what basis this estimate was made. In August the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan announced that, according to their agents in China, the death toll was over , with about 900,000 injured. They also reported that "almost all buildings in Tangshan were leveled", and 80 percent of homes and buildings in Tianjin "suffered damage to some extent". The following January (1977) the Nationalists released a document they said had been presented at an emergency conference on relief work the previous August by the Hebei Provincial Committee of the party and the Hebei Revolutionary Committee. According to this document: "in such seriously stricken areas as Tangshan municipality, and Fengnan and Feng-yun, there were persons dead. Some 79,000 persons were seriously injured, and some 700,000 persons suffered various degrees of injuries." Though these figures have been widely cited, it does not appear there has ever been inquiry into how they were derived, of whether they were an initial estimate (made in the first few days following the quake), or had a more solid basis. In the following June it was reported that the Chinese authorities had briefed seismologist Cinna Lomnitz about Tangshan. It was noted that though no figures were provided, they did not deny any