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The struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58 on the morning of September 1, 1923. The phrase "Great Kanto earthquake" usually means this earthquake, but is sometimes used to refer to the Ansei-Edo Earthquake of 1855 (安政の大地震). The quake was later estimated to have had a magnitude between 7.9 and 8.4 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter under Sagami Bay. Varied accounts hold that the duration was between 4 and 10 minutes.
It devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, and caused widespread damage throughout the Kantō region.
Casualty estimates range from about 100,000 to 142,000 deaths, the latter figure including approximately 37,000 who went missing and were presumed dead.^[1][2][3]

Contents

Damage

Post-quake violence

Aftermath

References

External links

Damage

Because the earthquake struck at lunchtime when many people were using fire to cook food, the damage and the number of fatalities were amplified due to fires which broke out in numerous locations. The fires spread rapidly due to high winds from a nearby typhoon off the coast of Noto Peninsula in Northern Japan and some developed into firestorms which swept across cities. The single greatest loss of life occurred when around 38,000 people packed into an open space at Rikugun Honjo Hifukusho in downtown Tokyo were incinerated by a firestorm induced fire whirl. As the earthquake had caused water mains to break, putting out the fires took nearly two full days until late in the morning of September 3. The fires were the biggest cause of death.

Cases of homes being buried or swept away by landslides were particularly frequent in the mountainous areas and hilly coastal areas in western Kanagawa Prefecture. These cases are reported to account for the deaths of about 800 people. At the railway station in the village of Nebukawa west of Odawara, a collapsing mountainside plunged a passing passenger train with over 100 passengers downhill into the sea along with the entire station structure and the village itself. Tsunami reached the coast within minutes in some areas, hitting the coast of Sagami Bay, Boso Peninsula, Izu Islands and the east coast of Izu Peninsula. Tsunami of up to 10 metres were recorded. Examples of tsunami damage include about 100 people killed along Yui-ga-hama beach in Kamakura and an estimated 50 people on the Enoshima causeway. Over 570,000 homes were destroyed, leaving an estimated 1.9 million homeless. The damage is estimated to have exceeded one billion U.S. dollars at contemporary values. There were 57 accountable aftershocks.

Post-quake violence

The panic and confusion created by the earthquake led to numerous false rumours spreading both inside and outside of the affected regions. Japanese newspaper articles carried confused stories, variously reporting the total annihilation of Tokyo, the Japanese cabinet getting wiped out, the entire Kantō region sinking into the sea, the destruction of the Izu Islands due to volcanic eruptions, and a monster tsunami reaching as far inland as Akagi (at the northernmost corner of the Kantō Plain, almost halfway across the width of the country).
The Home Ministry declared martial law, and ordered all sectional police chiefs to make maintenance of order and security a top priority. One particularly pernicious rumour was that ethnic Koreans were taking advantage of the disaster, committing arson and robbery, and were in possession of bombs. Some newspapers reported the rumours as fact, which led to the most deadly rumour of all: that the Koreans were poisoning wells. The numerous fires and cloudy well water (a little-known effect of a big quake) all seemed to confirm the rumours in the eyes of the panic-stricken survivors living among the rubble. Vigilante groups set up roadblocks in cities, towns and villages across the region. Because people with Korean accents pronounced "G" or "J" in the beginning of words differently, 15円 50銭 (''jū-go-en, go-jis-sen'') and がぎぐげご (''gagigugego'') were used as shibboleths. Anyone who failed to pronounce them properly was deemed Korean. Some were told to leave, but many were beaten or killed. Moreover, anyone mistakenly identified as Korean, such as Chinese, Okinawans, and Japanese speakers of some regional dialects, suffered the same fate.
In response to this, the Japanese Army and the police conducted operations to protect Koreans. More than 2,000 Koreans were taken in for protection from the mobs across the region, although recent studies have shown that there were incidents where army and police personnel are known to have condoned or even colluded in the vigilante killings in some areas. The chief of police of Tsurumi (or Kawasaki by some accounts) is reported to have publicly drunk the well-water to disprove the rumour that Koreans have been poisoning wells. In some towns, even police stations into which Koreans had escaped were attacked by mobs, whereas in other neighbourhoods residents took steps to protect them. The Army distributed flyers denying the rumour and warning civilians against attacking Koreans, but in many cases vigilante activity only ceased as a result of Army operations against it.
The total death toll from these disturbances is uncertain; according to the investigation by the Home Ministry, confirmed victims of vigilante justice were 231 Koreans killed and 43 injured, 3 Chinese killed, 59 Japanese (including Okinawans) killed and 43 injured. Actual estimates range as high as 6,600, although politically independent studies put the figure at just over 2,500. Three hundred and sixty-two Japanese civilians were eventually charged (for murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and assault), though most got off with nominal sentences, and even those who were sent to jail were later released with a general pardon commemorating the marriage of Prince Hirohito. In contrast, the actual number of Koreans who were charged for crimes during this period were 2 for murder, 3 for arson, 6 for robbery and 3 for rape.
All of those charged with the killings were civilians, despite the fact that some military and police units are now known to have taken part in the crimes, prompting accusations of a cover-up. Though the word was not known in Japan at the time, the events have many of the characteristics of a pogrom, targeting Jews and other ethnic and religious groups in various countries.
On top of this violence, Socialists like Hirasawa Keishichi, anarchists like Sakae Osugi and Noe Ito, and Chinese communal leader, Ou Kiten, were abducted and killed by members of the police who claimed the victims had intended to use the crisis as an opportunity to overthrow the Japanese government.
The importance of obtaining and providing accurate information following natural disasters has been emphasized in Japan ever since. Earthquake preparation literature in modern Japan almost always directs citizens to "carry a portable radio and use it to listen to reliable information, and [not to] be misled by rumours" in the event of a big quake.

Aftermath

Following the devastation of the earthquake, some in government considered the possibility of moving the capital elsewhere. Possible candidates suggested for the new capital included Himeji and Gyeongseong (''Keijo'' in Japanese; present-day Seoul), which was under Japanese rule at the time.
After the earthquake, Gotō Shimpei organized a reconstruction plan of Tokyo with modern networks of roads, trains, and public services. Parks were placed all over Tokyo as refuge spots and public buildings were constructed with stricter standards than private buildings to accommodate refugees. However, the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent destruction severely limited resources. It is possible that the earthquake caused the Japanese people to feel unsafe in their homeland, which may have combined with the rise of imperialism in Japan, to create the idea of getting safer lands by conquest, such as China.
The unfinished battlecruiser ''Amagi'' was being completed as an aircraft carrier at Yokosuka. However, it was damaged beyond repair in the earthquake. It was scrapped, and the unfinished fast battleship ''Kaga'' replaced it.
In 1960, September 1 was designated as ''Disaster Prevention Day'' to commemorate the earthquake and remind people of the importance of preparation, as September and October are the middle of the typhoon season. Schools, public and private organizations host disaster drills. Tokyo is located near a fault line beneath the Izu peninsula which, on average, causes a major earthquake about once every 70 years. Every year on this date, schools across Japan take a moment of silence at the precise time the earthquake hit in memory of the lives lost during this tragic event.
There are low-key memorial facilities in a small park in Sumida ward, Tokyo, at the site of the open space in which 30,000 people were killed by a single firestorm. The park houses a Buddhist-style memorial hall/museum, a memorial bell donated by Taiwanese Buddhists, a memorial to the victims of World War II Tokyo air raids and a memorial to the Korean victims of the vigilante killings.

References

1. The 1923 Tokyo Earthquake
2. The 1923 Kanto Earthquake Thomas A. Stanley and R.T.A. Irving
3. The 1923 Tokyo Earthquake and Fire Charles D. James

External links

★ Great Kanto Earthquake 1923 Online photo gallery by A. Kengelbacher

★ The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923: Materials from the Dana and Vera Reynolds Collection A Brown University Library Digital Collection

★ USGS Earthquake Lists

★ A Study by Kajima Construction Company

★ The 1923 Kanto Massacre of Koreans in Japan: A Japanese Professor Reveals the Truth Article from Korean newspaper

★ Additional information about the Great Kanto Earthquake

★ Numerical simulation (2.6 MB) (or see 6.2 MB version), produced by Professor Nobuo Shuto of the Disaster Control Research Center, Tohoku University, Japan, shows the 1923 Kanto tsunami. Note that the structures in this model are rigid - in a real-life tsunami, coastal structures often are destroyed. (The QuickTime movie presented here was digitized from a video tape produced from the original computer-generated animation.)