Following are some of the major quakes that have hit Japan in the last 15 years:
– On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck northeast Japan, killing nearly 20,000 people and causing a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, leading to the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
– On April 16, 2016, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Kumamoto, the scene of Tuesday’s temblor, killing more than 270 people, including some caught in landslides and heavy rain in the aftermath.
– On June 18, 2018, a magnitude-6.1 earthquake in Osaka, Japan’s second-biggest metropolis, killed four people, injured hundreds more and halted factory lines in an industrial area.
– On September 6, 2018, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake paralysed Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, killing more than 40 people, triggering landslides and knocking out power to its 5.3 million residents.
– On February 13, 2021, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Fukushima in eastern Japan, injuring dozens of people and triggering widespread power outages in Greater Tokyo.
– On March 16, 2022, a magnitude-7.4 earthquake jolted the coast off Fukushima again, leaving three dead, more than 200 injured and reviving memories of the quake and tsunami that crippled the Pacific coast region just over a decade earlier.
– On January 1, 2024, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake rocked the remote Noto peninsula on the west coast of central Japan on New Year’s Day. More than 300 people were killed.
– On August 8, 2024, a magnitude-7.1 earthquake off the coast of southern Miyazaki triggered Japan’s first-ever advisory on higher-than-usual risks of a megaquake, which was lifted a week later.
