Earthquakes in Japan: How Common They Are, What to Do and How Alerts Work

A phone on a Tokyo train platform lets out a harsh, unfamiliar chime, and every other phone around it answers a second later. Moments like this are where the question of earthquakes stops being abstract for a traveler. Tremors are a regular part of life across the islands, buildings are designed with them in mind, and a national warning system reaches phones, televisions and radios.

How common are earthquakes in Japan?

Earthquakes are a regular fact of life in Japan, and the written record of them reaches back to the first reliably documented quake, which struck Nara Prefecture on May 28 of the year 599 and destroyed buildings throughout Yamato province. Since then the islands have kept a long memory of shaking, and the country’s seismic scale, its building habits and its warning systems have all grown out of it.

For a visitor, this means two things. Small tremors can happen during an ordinary trip, and the large events that make headlines are rare but have shaped how cities, coastlines and public announcements work today.

Reading the shindo scale

It has ten levels, running from shindo zero to shindo seven. Unlike a magnitude, which describes the quake at its source, shindo describes how strongly the ground shook at a given place, so the same earthquake can register differently in two cities.

Shindo five is the level where damage becomes serious. On the news you will often see a map of the country colored by shindo values within minutes of a tremor.

Buildings matter here as much as the ground. Earthquake resistant structures have been widely deployed for houses and buildings across Japan, and most buildings are fairly resistant to earthquakes. That is why a tremor that rattles a hotel room can pass with no damage at all.

Earthquakes that shaped the country

A few events show the range of what Japan has lived through. The 1792 Unzen earthquake set off a tsunami that killed people in Higo, in present-day Kumamoto, across the Ariake Sea, and the wave then bounced back to hit Shimabara again. The distance between the two shores is only about 12 miles, which gives a sense of how a closed bay can trap a wave.

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries added more. The Tonankai earthquake struck in the early afternoon, and the Tokachi earthquake caused extensive damage to roads all around Hokkaido, along with power outages and landslides.

Earthquake	Date	Magnitude
Tonankai	December 7, 1944	8.1
Tokachi	September 25, 2003	8.3
Tohoku	March 11, 2011	9.0 to 9.1

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami

The Tohoku earthquake is the most powerful ever recorded in Japan. Its epicenter lay about 45 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula, and Sendai, the nearest major city, was 81 miles away. Tokyo, 232 miles to the southwest, also felt it, which shows how far a quake of this size travels.

The tsunami did the most harm. Waves reached up to 40 meters along the Sanriku coast, and at Miyako, in Iwate Prefecture, they climbed to 133 feet. In Rikuzentakata the water stood three stories high. Residents of Sendai had only eight to ten minutes of warning before it arrived, and Sendai Airport, near the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, was seen flooding that afternoon.

Ishinomaki City, in Miyagi Prefecture, recorded the most deaths of any municipality, with 3,553 fatalities. In Fudai, in Iwate, a floodgate 51 feet high held against the waves and spared the town from destruction.

What should travelers do in an earthquake?

Stay calm, protect yourself first, and if you are near the coast and feel a long or strong shake, move to higher ground without waiting for confirmation. The Japan National Tourism Organization frames its guidance around those two situations, a warning that comes before the shaking and a shaking that may bring a tsunami.

When the alarm sounds

An Earthquake Early Warning arrives as a special sound on your phone, the television or the radio, sometimes seconds before the strong shaking begins. When you see or hear one, you should remain calm and ensure your safety first, depending on the situation, even if you do not feel any vibration yet.

The warning is a signal to act, not to wonder. In a station, a shop or a hotel lobby you will often see people look up at the same moment, listen for announcements and check their phones, which is a useful cue for anyone who does not read Japanese.

Inside a building

Because most buildings in Japan are fairly resistant to earthquakes, the guidance for a hotel, a department store or a museum is to stay inside. If you are in such a building during an earthquake, do not go outside until it is safe. Falling glass, signs and facade pieces are a risk on the sidewalk that the building itself does not pose.

Staff in hotels and larger venues are used to giving instructions in these moments, and a ryokan or a hotel front desk is a sensible place to ask what is happening once the shaking stops.

Near the coast: tsunami

On a coast, a strong vibration, or even a weak one that lasts a long time, is the cue to start evacuating. The guidance is blunt: do not evaluate the safety situation yourself but evacuate to a more elevated place regardless.

If the agency expects a tsunami to cause any damage, it issues a warning approximately three minutes after the earthquake. Stay in a safe location until the Tsunami Warning is cancelled, because tsunamis strike repeatedly over a long period. The first wave is not necessarily the last or the largest.

Volcanoes and other hazards

Japan’s volcanoes belong to the same geology as its quakes. For volcanic activity, the instruction is to evacuate or prepare to evacuate from alert areas. If you are hiking or visiting a crater area, local alert levels are the guide, not the weather at your feet.

How do you get alerts?

Alerts reach you without any signup: the Earthquake Early Warning alarm, along with a special sound, is broadcast on TV, radio, cell phones and smartphones. When the Japan Meteorological Agency expects strong vibration right after a quake begins, it issues advance warnings as quickly as possible, with estimated arrival times and seismic intensities for areas across Japan.

Early warnings and Emergency Warnings

The warnings come in tiers. An Earthquake Early Warning that predicts tremors of 6-lower or more on the shindo scale is issued in the classification of Emergency Warnings. The agency launched this Emergency Warning System on 30 August 2013, and it exists to alert people to the significant likelihood of catastrophes tied to natural phenomena of extraordinary magnitude.

An Emergency Warning for an area signals exceptional risk of a magnitude observed only once every few decades. Residents are told to take all measures possible to protect themselves. Ordinary Warnings and Advisories continue to be issued in their current form alongside them, so you may still see both kinds on a screen.

Rain, storms and volcanoes

The same agency covers weather. It issues Advisories when heavy rain or strong winds may cause damage. For heavy rain, floods, landslides and storm surge, Warnings and Advisories follow five alert levels, and Urgent Warnings, equivalent to Alert Level 4, mean the likelihood of catastrophe is high and all residents should evacuate from dangerous areas.

People who need more time to evacuate, including elderly people and those with disabilities, are asked to start once warnings equivalent to Alert Level 3 are issued. Volcanic Warnings and Forecasts cover about 110 active volcanoes in Japan, so a trip to a volcanic area comes with its own stream of notices.

Where to look for information

For a major natural disaster, whether a typhoon, earthquake, tsunami or volcanic eruption, the Japan National Tourism Organization points travelers to four sources: the Japan Safe Travel Information website, the Safety tips app, the NHK WORLD-JAPAN website and the NHK WORLD-JAPAN app. The tourism organization’s Safe Travel Information page also gathers safety tips and government information for visitors.

These sources are in English, which matters when announcements on station speakers and television are in Japanese. Keeping your phone charged and in your pocket counts for a lot on days when a warning could arrive at any moment.

Good to know before you go

In Japan, dial 110 for police and 119 for fire or ambulance. A local police box, called a koban, can issue the police report you need to get a passport reissued or to claim insurance for theft, loss or other incidents, and reports must be filed before you leave the country.

International health insurance is not mandatory for entering Japan but is strongly recommended, because medical and hospitalization costs are expensive. The Japan Tourism Agency offers a Guide for when you feel ill, in English, Chinese and Korean, to find medical institutions that accept foreign visitors. In crowded shopping areas, on trains and at airports, keep an eye on your belongings.

Sources

U.S. Department of State, Japan travel information, safety and security (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Japan.html), checked October 11, 2026
Japan Meteorological Agency, Emergency Warnings (https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Emergency_Warning/ew_index.html), checked October 11, 2026
Japan National Tourism Organization, safety information (https://www.japan.travel/en/japan-safe-travel-information/), checked October 11, 2026
Japan National Tourism Organization, emergency numbers, police, ambulance, what to do (https://www.japan.travel/en/plan/emergencies/), checked October 11, 2026
Japan National Tourism Organization, Safety tips for travelers (https://www.jnto.go.jp/safety-tips/eng/index.html), checked October 11, 2026
Wikipedia, 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami), checked October 11, 2026
Wikipedia, Earthquakes in Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquakes_in_Japan), checked October 11, 2026