Mw 6.6 Hokkaido, Japan Region

On 5 September 2018 a strong earthquake occurred in Hokkaido, Japan Region at a depth of 30 km. The seismic event occurred at 18:08:00 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.6.

The earthquake occurred at the time of the Mercury-Sun-Saturn alignment, but planetary geometry was somewhat critical on the third coinciding with a lunar peak which reached index 13. Furthermore, Venus, Mars and Neptune were almost in alignment, and so were the Sun, Earth and Neptune. This geometry combined resulted in a major earthquake a day later.

Mercury-Sun-Saturn        2018-09-05, 15:19:43  277°42'14"

Venus:   Mercury-Earth    2018-09-03,  6:15:09   90°00'00"

Moon-Earth-Saturn         2018-09-04, 15:55:29  272°17'16"

Venus-Mars-Neptune        2018-09-05,  0:00:00              1°19'07"
Sun-Earth-Neptune         2018-09-06, 21:35:31              0°49'43"
          

SSGI depiction of planetary (PG) and lunar (LG) geometry