10 000 Yen - Heisei Earthquake 1

Issued to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Great Hanshin earthquake of January 17, 1995, which killed over 6,400 people and caused an estimated 10 trillion yen in damage — at the time the costliest natural disaster in recorded history. The Kobe region's near-total destruction accelerated major revisions to Japan's building codes and disaster response framework, changes whose inadequacy would be tested again sixteen years later at Tōhoku.