Kobe_Earthquake

Kobe Earthquake On Tuesday the 17th of January in 1997, and earthquake struck in south central Japan in the town of Kobe and Osaka, Japan's second most populated and industrialised area, after Tokyo. The shock occured at a shallow depth on a fault running from Awaji Island through to the city of Kobe, which has a population of 1.5 million. The earthquake, measuring at a magnitude of 7.2 (mj) began at 5:46 am, and the strong ground shaking lasted for about 20 seconds, causing severe damage over a large area. After the earthquake 5,500 deaths were confirmed, and 35,000 were seriously injured. More that 300 000 people were homeless because of the destruction of their homes. 180 000 buildings were badly damaged or destryoed, and because of this, all economic activity in Kobe virtually halted. Because so many people lost their homes, severe crowding in shelters occured, and sanitation problems increased with a risk earthquake, kobe, after, shaking, occured, billion, because, weeks, severe, seen, region, people, over, one, homes, economic, damaged, damage, caused, area, almost, 147, yen, virtually, uncontrollable, two, trillion, town, tokyo, through, three, th, tectonic, struck, strong, spread