The site and memorial wall of the Hanshin earthquake. The Hanshin earthquake, also known as the Kobe earthquake, refers to the earthquake disaster that occurred at 5:46:52 a.m. on January 17, 1995 in Kansai, Japan, on the scale of 7.3 on the Richter scale. The Hanshin earthquake is the largest metropolitan downtrodden earthquake in Japan since the 1923 Kanto earthquake. Because Kobe is a major city in Kansai, Japan, with a densely populated population of about 1.05 million people, and the earthquake struck in the early morning, it caused considerable casualties. official statistics show 6,434 people died, 43,792 were injured, and 320,000 people had to live in combination houses.