On January 17, 1995 at 5:46 am, the city of Kobe was hit by the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake. They preserved part of the exposed fault line at Nojima Fault Preservation Museum. The Nojima fault was the cause of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake that killed over 6400 people in the Kobe-Awaji area. (ok, so I "borrowed" those words from other websites)
Any way, I had been wanting to go to this museum since I first heard about it months ago. When Izumi told me we would go to this island for a weekend, I was so excited and hoping we could go there.
A memorial to all the lives lost to this horrific earthquake.
Juts inside the front doors is a replica of the highway that was damaged and toppled during the earthquake.
This museum was created literally on top of the exposed fault line.
The messed up asphalt from the damaged road.
in the upper left corner you can see a concrete ditch and then it stops and then it is just off the left side of the picture. That whole thing use to be straight and in line with the lower half.
This land use to be level. You can see how much the earth rose during the earthquake.
Another depiction of how the earth moved. The 2 orange dots should be next to each other.
more of the concrete ditch. It use to be straight.
These tress use to make a closed square. The next picture is a diagram of what it use to look like. Compare the pictures. 
This is a model that shows how the earth moved during the earthquake.
More of the moved earth
The blue dots belong together and the orange dots belong together.
The earth was cut away here. You can see the different plates of the earth and how the moved.
There was a house that sat on the fault line. It was damaged in the quake (imagine that), but the city decided to preserve the house to show and teach people the importance of being earthquake ready.
This is an aerial photo of the house. Notice the red arrow at the top and the bottom, that is the fault line that passes through the house.
Gotta love the English signs here
The fence around the property was damaged. There were pictures of the inside of the house, but a bit difficult to see what I was seeing.
Then they had a room where you could "live" the earthquake. RJ was very worried about going on the "ride" cause he had seen what the inside of the house looked like. I told him it would be ok because there was nothing that could fall down and hurt us. Once the "ride started, he started laughing. It was quite hilarious.
Mitch videoed the next one for all of you to see. The original quake was 7.o and then there was an after shock about a 4.0.
The museum was amazing to see. I don't think I ever fully understood what happens during a quake other than the move shakes. Now let's just hope we get out of here before another hits....
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