July 23, 2005 Japan Earthquake

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Posting Date: July 24, 2005, 10:00:00 PM

A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.1 hit Tokyo Saturday afternoon at 4:34 p.m. local time (0734 UTC). The epicenter was located 15 miles southeast of Tokyo in Chiba prefecture, near the south coast of Honshu, Japan. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated the depth at 45.9 miles. Thirty-seven people were reported injured in the quake. Five of those injured were hit by a falling signboard in a supermarket in the nearby Saitama prefecture. Although the power supply in the region was not disrupted, as many as 50,000 elevators came to a stop as the earthquake hit, stranding some people for hours. Bullet train service and the railroad networks were temporarily halted, stranding more than 400,000 people. Tokyo’s bus and subway lines were also temporarily interrupted. The runways at the area’s main international airport at Narita were closed temporarily, but reopened within hours. Damage in the epicentral region was light, primarily as a result of the depth of this event. There are reports of goods being tossed from shelves in stores and supermarkets, and billboards and brick walls were toppled around Tokyo. A small tower outside Tokyo was also knocked down by the earthquake. The quake, which was the strongest to hit Tokyo since 1992, comes on the heels of a report by Japanese researchers warning the government that Tokyo’s current state of preparedness for a major event is insufficient. The AIR earthquake team has assembled the available information about this event and has run simulations based on estimates of epicentral location, focal depth, rupture mechanism and magnitude using the AIR Japan earthquake model. Results indicate that insured losses should not exceed USD 150 million.

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Posting Date: July 24, 2005, 10:00:00 PM