Ring of Fire subduction of the Pacific Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. As many as 1,500 earthquakes are recorded yearly, and magnitudes of 4 to 6 are not uncommon. Minor tremors occur almost daily in one part of the country or another, causing some slight shaking of buildings. Major earthquakes occur infrequently; the most famous in the 20th century were: the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, in which 130,000 people died; and the Great Hanshin earthquake of 17 January 1995, in which 6,434 people died. On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Japan, the country's biggest ever and the fifth
2011 Christchurch earthquake the TranzCoastal has been cancelled until mid-August. KiwiRail also delayed 14 March departure of its Interislander ferry to Singapore for a extension and refit prior to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. With extra passenger and freight movements over Cook Strait following the earthquake, the company would have been unable to cope with just two ships operating on a reduced schedule so soon after the earthquake, so pushed back the departure to the end of April. The earthquake combined with the urgency created by the unseasonably early break-up of sea ice on the Ross Ice Shelf caused logistical problems with the