According to the Oxford Dictionary an earthquake is :"A movement in the earth's crust or mantle caused by a build-up of pressure, which sends out a series of three distinct shock waves"

According to the Oxford Dictionary an earthquake is:

“A movement in the earth’s crust or mantle caused by a build-up

of pressure, which sends out a series of three distinct shock waves”

Such a movement in the earth’s crust occurred in Kobe on 17th January 1995 at 5:46am resulting in many deaths. Well over 5,000 civilians are estimated to have died as a result of this catastrophe and around 35,000 injured. 38,321 houses completely collapsed and 48,546 houses partially collapsed and 14,081 damaged. On the day of the earthquake 136 fires where reported, after a week 414 and after a month 531 fires.

This picture shows where the damaged was most caused in Kobe:

One of the factors contributing to this inordinate death toll was the immediate devastation. The earthquake reached a staggering 7.2 on the Richter scale. The ground to move 7 inches in horizontal shaking, and 4 inches vertically. This would obviously cause a great amount of destruction. The destruction was only to be added to with a following 718 aftershocks.

Many of the deaths in the Kobe quake were in the older part of Kobe, many of the buildings in the older part of the ...