Great Hanshin earthquake 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 in the 20th century after the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which claimed more than 105,000 lives. Most of the largest earthquakes in Japan are caused by subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate or Pacific Plate, with mechanisms that involve either energy released within the subducting plate or the accumulation and sudden release of stress in the overlying plate. Earthquakes of these types are especially frequent in the coastal regions
1923 Great Kantō earthquake regional police and the Imperial Army used the pretext of civil unrest to liquidate political dissidents. Socialists such as (平澤計七), anarchists such as Sakae Ōsugi and Noe Itō, and the Chinese communal leader, (王希天), were abducted and killed by local police and Imperial Army, who claimed the radicals intended to use the crisis as an opportunity to overthrow the Japanese government. Director Chongkong Oh made two documentary films about the pogrom: "Hidden Scars: The Massacre of Koreans from the Arakawa River Bank to Shitamachi in Tokyo" (1983) and "The Disposed-of Koreans: The Great Kanto Earthquake and Camp Narashino" (1986). They