
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 19, 1995                   TAG: 9501190118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

MAGNITUDE SET AT 6.8

The National Earthquake Information Center has lowered official estimates of the magnitude of Tuesday's earthquake in the Kobe-Osaka region of Japan.

By the scale used most widely in the scientific community in the United States and elsewhere, the quake had a magnitude of 6.8, said Stuart K. Koyangi, a geophysicist at the center, which is operated by the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo.

Also, the New York Times reported that Japanese scientists Wednesday cut by half their estimate of the depth of the quake that shook the Kobe region, helping explain why the temblor was so violent and deadly.

The preliminary estimate on Tuesday was that the quake's focus lay at a depth of 20 kilometers, or 12.4 miles. But the Japanese scientists, working with an array of data from instruments that measure various kinds of shock waves, Wednesday revised their estimate to 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles.

``That's significant,'' said Dr. Waverly Person, director of National Earthquake Information Center, in Golden, Colo. ``When you get shallow earthquakes, it's very intense.''

- Los Angeles Times and New York Times

by CNB