"Your Guide to Earthquake Safety"

Hypocenter

The “hypocenter” is the underground place where the earthquake occurred.
The place just above the hypocenter on the earth’s surface is named as the “epicenter”.

The seismic center is often used in place of the epicenter, but the term is a slang word.
When the term epicenter was not so popular, the mass media called it the seismic center.

The “hypocentral region” is the area where the rocks destroyed at underground, and the area is depend on the scale of the earthquake.

These terms, hypocenter, epicenter, seismic center, and hypocentral region, are frequently confused, and many people does not understand the differences of the meaning.

We could understood these meaning for the first time by making this website.