About 42,000 people could be killed if a magnitude 7.6 earthquake were to hit western Japan, more than six times the toll from a devastating 1995 quake in the region, a government task force said.
The January 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck the port of Kobe had a magnitude of 7.2. It and its resulting unstoppable fires destroyed tens of thousands of buildings and left some 6,400 people dead.
The Central Disaster Prevention Council said on its Web site Thursday that about 42,000 could be killed if a magnitude 7.6 inland quake hit western Japan, which includes the cities Osaka and Kobe, at 5 a.m. in the winter.
If such a quake hit western Japan, many fatalities would be caused by the destruction of homes in densely populated Osaka — where many houses were built before 1981, when the current earthquake resistance standards were put in place — Cabinet Office official Ryotaro Hayashi said.