Nonwoven fabric and method for manufacturing same

A method for manufacturing a nonwoven fabric, comprising the steps of:

• (1) forming a fiber web made mainly of latent crimpable fibers, wherein the fiber web made mainly of latent crimpable fibers is a fiber web made mainly of latent crimpable fibers made of a combination of polyethylene terephthalate/low-melting-point polyethylene terephthalate,
• (2) causing a water jet having a pressure of 5.5 MPa or more to act onto the fiber web, thereby forming an entangled fiber web,
• (3) causing heat to act onto the entangled fiber web, thereby crimping the latent crimpable fibers to convert the fibers to crimped fibers, and contracting, at the time of the conversion, the area of the entangled fiber web by 35% or more in the machine direction and/or the cross direction, thereby forming a contracted fiber web, and
• (4) once the contracted fiber web has reached a stable-state and no longer retains heat from step (3), embossing the stable-state contracted fiber web that no longer retains heat in such a manner that the fibers are not melted and bonded to each other, thereby forming a nonwoven fabric partially having a compressed region, having a 50% modulus strength of 8 N/5-cm-width or less in the cross direction, and having a tensile strength of 55 N/5-cm-width or more in the machine direction and a tensile strength of 40 N/5-cm-width or more in the cross direction.