The Great Hanshin earthquake, or Kobe earthquake, occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST (January 16 at 20:46 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.8 on the moment magnitude scale (USGS), and Mj7.3 (adjusted from 7.2) on 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 in the 20th century after the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which claimed 140,000 lives. It caused approximately ten trillion yen ($100 billion) in damage, 2.5% of Japan's GDP at the time.
Read more about Great Hanshin Earthquake: Seismic Intensity, Foreshocks and Aftershocks, Damage, Response, Name, Mechanism of The Earthquake
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“Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)