The 1994 Kuril Islands earthquake – also known as the Hokkaido Toho-oki earthquake – occurred on October 5 at 00:23:00 local time. The magnitude of this earthquake was put at
Mw8.3, or
MJMA8.1. The epicenter was located at about 70 km east of
Shikotan Island. The shaking and tsunami caused road and building damage. At least 10 people were reported dead.
Oil storage tanks in Malokurilsk and Krabozavodsk were damaged. An oil leak occurred and caused heavy contamination of the port area.[6]
Intensity
The intensity was MSK VI~IX in Shikotan Island.[7]
The earthquake could be felt in
Tokyo with
shindo 3, and in Hokkaido, the highest intensity reached shindo 6.[8][9]
Aftershocks
A large aftershock of magnitude
Mw 7.1 or
Ms 7.7 occurred on October 9, 1994, at 07:55 UTC. It was located at 43.97° N, 148.22° E with a depth of 33 km.[7] It generated a tsunami, and a peak-to-trough tsunami wave height of 18 cm was recorded in Hanasaki, Japan.[10]
Tsunami
A numerical simulation of the tsunami suggested that the first wave was caused by a significant subsidence north of the Kuril Islands due to the earthquake.[11]
A peak-to-trough tsunami wave height of 3.46 m (11.4 ft) was recorded in Hanasaki, Japan.[10]
This earthquake triggered a tsunami in southern
Kuril Islands and
Hokkaido.[12] The tsunami run-up height was more than 3 m in Yuzhno-Kurilsk bay and 5 m in Zelenyi Island, Russia.[7]
The tsunami had a maximum runup height of 10.4 m (34 ft) at the southern part of Dimitrova Bay.[13]
^Cho, I.; Nakanishi, I.; Sato, T. (1999), "A feasibility test of CMT inversion using regional network of broad-band strong-motion seismographs for near-distance large earthquakes", Earth, Planets and Space, 51 (4): 247,
Bibcode:
1999EP&S...51..247C,
doi:10.1186/BF03352228,
S2CID55653283