Rare Ground Rupture Caught on Camera in Kumamoto Quake

Kumamoto, Aug. 24 (Jiji Press)--A security camera in Kumamoto Prefecture has filmed the moment an earthquake in the southwestern Japan prefecture caused the ground to rupture and rise, marking only the second time in the world the phenomenon has been confirmed on video.

The footage is "extremely valuable for analyzing the mechanism of earthquakes," Ryusuke Imura, an associate professor of geology at Kagoshima University, said.

The video was taken in the city of Yatsushiro, where the 7.1-magnitude July 28 quake recorded a seismic intensity of upper 6, the second-highest level on the Japanese scale, with about 2,500 buildings damaged.

It shows a rice paddy and nearby houses rising a few seconds after the shaking began.

Imura said that the vertical and horizontal displacement of the fault at the site where the footage was taken totaled roughly 1.2 meters.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]