Earthquake in Toyama Bay on February 1

[Noto Region, Ishikawa Prefecture] was the regional name of the epicenter used in the Japan Meteorological Agency announcement.

On February 1, 2015 at 00:42 (JST), there was a M4.4 earthquake (maximum seismic intensity 4) at a depth of 15 km in Toyama bay. This event occurred within the crust. The focal mechanism had a compression axis in an NNE-SSW direction.
In the vicinity of the recent event (Area a), the seismic activity since January 1993 is rather low: there was no earthquake of M4.0 or over, except for a M4.9 earthquake (maximum seismic intensity 3) on February 22, 1993. In addition, there was a M3.7 earthquake (maximum seismic intensity 3) on August 5, 2006 and its aftershock activity continued until the end of August.

For the seismic activity since January 1923, in the area around the recent event (Area b), on September 21, 1933, there was a M6.0 earthquakes (maximum seismic intensity 4), which caused damage with 3 fatalities, 57 injured persons, and 2 totally collapsed houses (Comprehensive Bibliography of Destructive Earthquakes in Japan).
Also there was "the 2007 Noto-Hanto Earthquake" (M6.9, maximum seismic intensity 6 Upper), which caused damage with a fatality, 356 heavily or lightly injured persons, and 2426 totally or heavily collapsed houses (Fire and Disaster Management Agency). In addition, tsunami with height of 22 cm was observed at Suzu city, Ishikawa prefecture.

Japan Meteorological Agency
[Evaluation of Seismic Activities for February 2015 (March 10, 2015)]