It came as a one-two punch: a strong foreshock, then a bigger mainshock a day later that finished buildings the first had weakened — including a beloved 400-year-old castle.
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DownloadThe 2016 Kumamoto earthquake struck on April 15, 2016, registering magnitude 7.0 (moment magnitude, Mw). Each whole step on the moment-magnitude scale is roughly 32 times more energy, so this released on the order of 32× the energy of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
Its epicenter was located near 32.79°N, 130.75°E, at a depth of about 10 km — a shallow crustal earthquake. Shallow earthquakes like this release their energy close to the surface, which is why the shaking near the epicenter was so violent.
An estimated 273 people were killed.