Recent major earthquakes in Japan

Lying on the "Ring of Fire" of volcanoes and ocean trenches that encircle part of the Pacific Ocean basin, Japan accounts for about 20% of the world's earthquakes measuring 6 or more on the Richter scale and experiences up to 2,000 felt earthquakes each year.

The largest earthquakes in Japan since the Kobe earthquake in 1995, picture 1 — Cracks on a road caused by an earthquake in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan on January 1, 2024. Photo: Kyodo

Here are some major earthquakes in Japan over the past 30 years.

January 16, 1995 : A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes central Japan, devastating the port city of Kobe. It is the worst earthquake to hit the country in 50 years, killing more than 6,400 people and causing an estimated $100 billion in damage.

October 23, 2004 : A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the Niigata region, about 250 km north of Tokyo, killing 65 people and injuring 3,000.

March 11, 2011 : A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan, killing nearly 20,000 people and triggering the Fukushima disaster – the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

April 16, 2016 : A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes Kumamoto on Japan's southern island, killing more than 220 people.

The largest earthquakes in Japan since the Kobe earthquake in 1995, photo 2 — A car is stuck in a crack in the road after an earthquake in Ishikawa prefecture, Japan on Monday. Photo: Reuters

June 18, 2018 : A magnitude 6.1 earthquake in Osaka, Japan's second-largest metropolis, killed four people, injured hundreds more and halted production lines at an industrial park.

September 6, 2018: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake paralyzed Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, killing at least seven people, causing landslides and cutting power to its 5.3 million residents.

February 13, 2021 : A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima in eastern Japan, injuring dozens of people and causing widespread power outages.

March 16, 2022 : A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes off the coast of Fukushima again, killing two people and injuring 94, and reviving memories of the quake and tsunami that crippled the area just over a decade earlier.

Mai Anh (according to Kyodo, Reuters)

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