The Great Hanshin earthquake, or Kobe earthquake as it is more commonly known outside Japan, was an earthquake that occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hy go Prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.8 on the Moment magnitude scale JMA magnitude scale. The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake was located 16 km beneath its epicenter, on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the city of Kobe. Approximately 6,434 people lost their lives; about 4,600 of them were from Kobe. Among major cities, Kobe, with its population of 1.5 million, was the closest to the epicenter and hit by the strongest tremors. This was Japan's worst earthquake since the Great Kant earthquake in 1923, which claimed 140,000 lives. It caused approximately ten trillion yen in damage, 2.5% of Japan's GDP at the time. Based on the average currency conversion rate over the following 500 days of 97.545 yen per USD, the quake caused $102.5 billion in damages.