The earthquake hit at 5:46 AM on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1995, in the southern part of Hyōgo prefecture, west-central Honshu. It lasted about 20 seconds and registered as a magnitude 6.9 (7.3 on the Richter scale). Its epicentre was the northern part of Awaji Island in the Inland Sea, 12.5 miles (20 km) off the coast of the port city of Kōbe; the quake's focus was about 10 miles (16 km) below the earth's surface. The Hanshin region (the name is derived from the characters used to write Ōsaka and Kōbe) is Japan's second largest urban area, with more than 11 million inhabitants; with the earthquake's epicentre located as close as it was to such a densely populated area, the effects were overwhelming. Its estimated death toll of 6,400 made it the worst earthquake to hit Japan since the Tokyo-Yokohama (Great Kantō) earthquake of 1923 (Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake of 1923), which had killed more than 140,000. The Kōbe quake's devastation included 40,000 injured, more than 300,000 homeless residents, and in excess of 240,000 damaged homes, with millions of homes in the region losing electric or water service. Kōbe was the hardest hit city with 4,571 fatalities, more than 14,000 injured, and more than 120,000 damaged structures, more than half of which were fully collapsed. Portions of the Hanshin Expressway linking Kōbe and Ōsaka also collapsed or were heavily damaged during the earthquake.

In the aftermath of the Kōbe disaster, roads, bridges, and buildings were reinforced against another earthquake, and the national government revised its disaster response policies (its response to the 2004 quake in Niigata prefecture was much faster and more effective). An emergency transportation network was also devised, and evacuation centres and shelters were set up in Kōbe by the Hyōgo prefectural government.