The great earthquake of 1995 measured a 7.2 on the Richter Scale and occurred early in the morning of January 17, 1995. The origin was about 14 km below the surface and displaced the land in parts of Awaji Island 2 meters laterally and up to 1.2 meters vertically. The museum we went to has preserved part of the fault to show the extent of the movement. The earthquake devastated Kobe and killed over 6,400 people.
The strange part is that you can't tell the city was destroyed except for one building. ONE! And that one was only cracked all over and it's been plastered up. The rest of the city has been rebuilt since.
The closer the focus of an earthquake is to the earth's surface, the stronger it is and the more damage it causes. At 14 km, the Great Hanshin-Awaji quake was fairly shallow, thus making it the most devastating in modern Japanese memory and by building the museum, they want to be sure the new generations know the danger.
