<Tr> <Th> Casualties </Th> <Td> 5,502--6,434 killed 36,896--43,792 injured 251,301--310,000 displaced </Td> </Tr> <P> The Great Hanshin earthquake (阪神 ・ 淡路 大震災, Hanshin Awaji daishinsai), or Kobe earthquake, occurred on January 17, 1995 at 05: 46: 53 JST (January 16 at 20: 46: 53 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, known as Hanshin . It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and 7 on the JMA Shindo intensity scale . The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds . The focus of the earthquake was located 17 km beneath its epicenter, on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the city of Kobe . </P> <P> Up to 6,434 people lost their lives; 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 in the 20th century after the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which claimed more than 105,000 lives . </P> <P> Most of the largest earthquakes in Japan are caused by subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate or Pacific Plate, with mechanisms that involve either energy released within the subducting plate or the accumulation and sudden release of stress in the overlying plate . Earthquakes of these types are especially frequent in the coastal regions of northeastern Japan . </P>

The 1995 kobe earthquake was the worst catastrophe in japan since