WThe 2001 Geiyo earthquake occurred with a moment magnitude of 6.7 on March 24 at 15:27 local time near Hiroshima, Japan. One person in Hiroshima and one person in Ehime were reported dead. About 3,700 buildings were damaged in the Hiroshima area. Liquefaction was observed in Hiroshima and Ehime. Power outage occurred in the prefectures of Hiroshima, Ehime, Okayama, Yamaguchi, and Kōchi. The maximum intensity was shindo lower 6 in Hiroshima. This earthquake could be felt along the eastern and southern coasts of South Korea.
WThe Akashi pedestrian bridge accident was a human crush that occurred on 21 July 2001 in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan. In the incident, a large crowd of people packed into a partially enclosed pedestrian overpass leading to Asagiri Station after a fireworks show. The resulting crush killed 11 people, including two adults and nine children, and injured 247 others. Five civic and security officials were later convicted of professional negligence for not preventing the disaster.
WThe Battle of Amami-Ōshima, also known as the Spy Ship Incident in the Southwest Sea of Kyūshū , was a six-hour confrontation between the Japan Coast Guard and an armed North Korean vessel on 22 December 2001, taking place near the island of Amami Ōshima, in the East China Sea. The encounter ended in the sinking of the North Korean vessel, which the Japanese authorities later announced was determined to have been a spy craft. The encounter took place outside Japanese territorial waters, but within the exclusive economic zone, an area extending 200 nautical miles from Japanese land, within which Japan can claim exclusive rights to fishing and mineral resources.
WOn 9 February 2001, about nine nautical miles south of Oahu, Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, the United States Navy (USN) Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) collided with the Japanese-fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru (えひめ丸) from Ehime Prefecture. In a demonstration for some VIP civilian visitors, Greeneville performed an emergency ballast blow surfacing maneuver. As the submarine shot to the surface, she struck Ehime Maru. Within 10 minutes of the collision, Ehime Maru sank. Nine of the thirty-five people on board were killed: four high-school students, two teachers, and three crew members.
WFMW 12th Anniversary Show: Kawasaki Legend 2001 was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The event took place on May 5, 2001 at Kawasaki Stadium in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. The event marked the return of FMW to the Kawasaki Stadium since Fall Spectacular in 1997. The event commemorated the twelfth anniversary of the promotion and was the final edition of the Anniversary Show as the promotion closed on February 15, 2002.
WOn January 31, 2001, Japan Airlines Flight 907, a Boeing 747-400 en route from Haneda Airport, Japan, to Naha Airport, Okinawa, narrowly avoided a mid-air collision with Japan Airlines Flight 958, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40 en route from Gimhae International Airport, South Korea, to Narita International Airport, Japan. The event became known in Japan as the Japan Airlines near miss incident above Suruga Bay .
WTyphoon Nari, known in the Philippines as Tropical Storm Kiko, was an unusually long-lived category 3 typhoon which took an erratic, two week track near Taiwan during September 2001. It was the 16th typhoon to be named in the 2001 Pacific typhoon season.