The Great Hanshin earthquake (阪神・淡路大震災, Hanshin-Awaji Daishinsai), or Kobe earthquake as it is more commonly known outside Japan, was an earthquake that occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.8 on the Moment magnitude scale (USGS), and Mj7.3 on the revised (7.2 on the old) JMA magnitude scale. The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake wa...
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The Great Hanshin earthquake (阪神・淡路大震災, Hanshin-Awaji Daishinsai), or Kobe earthquake as it is more commonly known outside Japan, was an earthquake that occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.8 on the Moment magnitude scale (USGS), and Mj7.3 on the revised (7.2 on the old) JMA magnitude scale. The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake was located 16 km beneath its epicenter, on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the city of Kobe.
Approximately 6,434 people lost their lives (final estimate as of December 22, 2005); about 4,600 of them were from Kobe. Among major cities, Kobe, with its population of 1.5 million, was the closest to the epicenter and hit by the strongest tremors. This was Japan's worst earthquake since the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which claimed 140,000 lives. It caused approximately ten trillion yen in damage, 2.5% of Japan's GDP at the time...
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