- The modern town of Wakuya was established on June 1, 1889 with the establishment of the municipalities system.
- The town annexed the neighboring village of Moto-Wakuya on December 1, 1948, and the village of Nonodake on July 15, 1955.
- A worker at a convenience store in Wakuya, the town which registered the strongest shaking, said nothing was knocked off the shelves by the quake.
- Stationary MT monitoring systems have been installed in Japan since April 1996, providing a continuous recording of MT signals at the Wakuya Station ( previously at the Mizusawa Geodetic Observatory ) and the Esashi Station of the Geographical Survey Institute of Japan ( GSIJ ).