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Mount Unzen
In the year, 1792, one of Mount Unzen's several lava domes collapsed and caused an eruption. After the initial eruption, a large earthquake triggered a landslide. The massive landslide swept through the city and eventually reached the Ariake Sea, where it set off a tsunami. It is estimated that 15,000 people perished in the worst volcanic related disaster in Japanese history. -
Great Kanto Earthquake
The duration of the earthquake indicated by various accounts was between a whooping four to 10 minutes. This earthquake had a magnitude of 7.9. The initial jolt was followed a few minutes later by a 40-foot-high tsunami. An estimated 200,000 people were killed and over half a million houses were destroyed by fire tornados that were caused after the quake. -
Tonankai Earthquake
As the result of the ongoing Second War at the time, the news on the event was downplayed by the authorities in order to protect wartime morale, and as a result the full extent of the damage was never known. However, it was estimated that the quake had killed over 1300 people, the tsunami waves being the leading cause of the casualties. -
Nankaido earthquake
On 21 December, 1946 a catastrophic earthquake hit the southwest of Japan in the Nankai Trough measuring a whooping 8.4 on the moment magnitude scale. The quake gave rise to enormous tsunami waves that washed away 1451 houses and caused over a 1500 deaths. The quake felt almost everywhere in the central and western parts of the country. -
Sea of Japan
The 1983, Sea of Japan earthquake or often referred to as the Nihonkai-Chubu earthquake occurred on May 26. The earthquake and tsunami waves caused extensive damage to homes and roads along the Japan Sea coast of southern Hokkaido. At least 104 people were killed and 325 others were injured. Most of the damage occured during the tsunami. -
Hokkaido Earthquake
With a magnitude of 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale.The quake didn’t do as much harm on land as it did through sea; the tsunami waves that were triggered by the quake were surely some of the historic tsunami waves the world had ever seen, causing deaths on Hokkaido and all the way up to southwestern Russia, with a total of 230 fatalities. The island of Okushiri was hit the hardest by the tsunami, with over 165 casualties from the earthquake alone and records of large scale landslides across -
Great Hanshin Earthquake
The quake lasted for twenty seconds destroying 150,000 buildings, the collapse of about a kilometer of the Hanshin Expressway and also causing the destruction of 120 of the 150 quays in the port of Kobe. The quake was measured at 6.8 on the moment magnitude scale. Casualties resulted from the quake were over a 6000 dead people, with more than 300,000 injured or made homeless. -
Sakurajima Volcano
On the afternoon of 10th December at, Fire columns as high as 100 m were witnessed, accompanied by 116 flashes of volcanic lightning. On the 24th of December in the same year, there was an eruption with fire columns as high as 300 m and 6 flashes of volcanic lightning. -
Miyagi Earthquake
Miyagi earthquake was a powerful 7.2 rector quake that struck the east coast of the Japanese island of Honshu on 16th of August, 2005. Around 17,000 homes lost power after the quake. It triggered a tsunami warning and buildings 200 miles away in the capital, Tokyo felt the shock. The casualties included those killed because of a pool roof collapsing in Sendai city. This quake is considered to be one of the least powerful earthquakes that have hit Japan. -
Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami
The Tōhoku quake was one that surpassed the record of the Great Kantō quake of 1923 in magnitude and destruction measuring a 9.0 in the moment magnitude scale and killing thousands of people across Japan. The quake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 meters. The quake was certainly the costliest natural disaster in world history. The total economic cost for the disaster was at US$235 billion. The final death toll was around 16,000.
