History
Daikai Station opened on 7 April 1968 with the inauguration of Kobe Rapid Transit Railway's East-West Line, today operated by Hanshin Electric Railway as the Kobe Kosoku Line. The underground station sits beneath National Route 28 in Hyōgo-ku, Kobe. During the Great Hanshin earthquake of 17 January 1995 it suffered catastrophic damage when 31 of 35 intermediate columns failed and the ceiling collapsed in an M-shape, taking the road above down with it. After a year of reconstruction overseen by Sato Kogyo using composite steel-tube columns and 50% additional reinforcement, the rebuilt station reopened to passengers on 17 January 1996. A west exit was added on 1 September 2009, and station numbering (HS 37) was introduced on 1 April 2014.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Daikai is documented as the first underground station, away from an active fault and on non-liquefiable soil, to suffer complete structural collapse in an earthquake — a benchmark case in subway seismic engineering.