Japan: recent progress in active fault surveying since the 1995 Kobe earthquake

摘要

Hakuyu Okada writes The devastating Kobe Earthquake in January 1995, which brought the most disastrous damage of the last seven decades in Japan, sacrificing more than 6000 lives and destroying as many as 510 000 buildings, was caused by active faults directly beneath the Kobe area (see Geology Today, v.14, p.53, 1998; v.15, pp.9-10), 1999). Since then, much attention has been paid not only by specialists but also by citizens throughout the country to active faults. Consequently, the Japanese government brought in a new special law for earthquake disaster prevention measures immediately after the Kobe earthquake, under which the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion (HQERP) was established in the Prime Minister's office. As one of the responsible organizations for this act, the Active Fault Research Centre was launched in 2001 in the Geological Survey of Japan.