The Great Kanto Earthquake, also sometimes called the Great Tokyo Earthquake, rockedJapanon Sept. 1, 1923. Of the 3,000 Koreans taken into custody at the Army Cavalry Regiment base in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture, 10% were killed at the base, or after being released into nearby villages. Fifteen minutes later, they had spread to 136. Thanks to that terrible tragedy, I'm here. Disasters, he wrote, take away the falsehood and ostentation of human life and conspicuously expose the strengths and weaknesses of human society.1 The disaster in question was the Great Kant Earthquake, the anniversary of which todaySeptember 1all Japanese know as Natural Disaster Prevention Day. Using the post-earthquake reconstruction period opportunistically, politicians implemented a series of anti-luxury tariffs on goods politicians deemed extravagant or wasteful. This article examines how the people of Japan responded to the Great Kant Earthquake of 1923, the worst natural disaster to strike this island nation in recorded history. The Akasaka district, one of Tokyos residential areas, lies in ruins after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake on Sept. 1, 1923. okyo and Yokohama, Japan, Earthquake September 1, 1923. Congestion of refugees fleeing their homes in the Ueno vicinity in Tokyo. The wave of good feeling between the two countries would soon dissipate, however, in mutual accusations. Sara is in the streets, and Taka is taking Sara's brother Junichirou to a hospital after he was injured in a yakuza-related incident. Educator Takashima Heizabur encouraged families to foster a sense of diligence and thrift at home and to eat only brown rice on the first of each month to commemorate the earthquake disaster. The phenomenon is sometimes labeled a fire tornado, firenado, fire swirl, or fire twister, but these terms usually refer to a separate phenomenon where a fire has such intensity that it generates an actual tornado. [2] Fire whirls become frequent when a wildfire, or especially firestorm, creates its own wind, which can spawn large vortices. Ninety-three years ago today, the Great KantoEarthquake rocked Japan, destroyingTokyo and Yokohama and wreakingwidespread damage. The 7.9 magnitude earthquake, centered just over forty miles south-southwest of Japan's capital, released energy equivalent to the detonation of nearly 400 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs. [22] Some fires developed into firestorms[23][24][25] that swept across cities. [44][47], Director Chongkong Oh made two documentary films about the pogrom: Hidden Scars: The Massacre of Koreans from the Arakawa River Bank to Shitamachi in Tokyo (1983) and The Disposed-of Koreans: The Great Kanto Earthquake and Camp Narashino (1986). IAIz \0V1G/^~n ^F|OY,)G~o{s:8u]:4cN}Uxi!T|yLx0F7! [39][40][41] Some newspapers reported the rumors as fact, including the allegation that Koreans were poisoning wells. (Photo credit: U.S. Geological Survey / AP / Brown University). Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-great-kanto-earthquake-195143. The Kant Massacre began on the day of the earthquake. Stunned survivors of the earthquake, tsunami, and firestorm looked for an explanation or a scapegoat, and the target of their fury was the ethnic Koreans living in their midst. Both the cities of Yokohama and Tokyo were devastated, but the consequences of the earthquake would turn out to be just as destructive, if not more so. Estimates suggest that vigilantes and voluntary self-defense groups killed around 6,000 Koreans, as well as a small number of Japanese and Chinese mistaken for Koreans, in the days following the disaster.10 While news of the massacres was initially tightly controlled, within months select newspapers and journals published stinging critiques of the murderous events. An overwhelming disaster has overtaken the people of the friendly nation of Japan, he declared on September 3. [13] Extensive firestorms and even a fire whirl added to the death toll. One hundred and thirty separate fires began in Tokyo less than an hour after the quake, with many clustered in the densely populated eastern and northeastern wards of Asakusa, Nihonbashi, Kanda, Kybashi, Fukagawa, and Ginza. Otis Manchester Poole, a 43-year-old American manager of a trading firm, stepped out of his largely still-intact office near the Bund to face an indelible scene. Fire whirls are not usually classifiable as tornadoes as the vortex in most cases does not extend from the surface to cloud base. The smiles vanished, remembered Ellis M. Zacharias, then a young U.S. naval officer, who was standing on the pier when the earthquake hit, and for an appreciable instant everyone stood transfixed by the sound of unearthly thunder. Moments later, a tremendous jolt knocked Zacharias off his feet, and the pier collapsed, spilling cars and people into the water. The Great Kanto Earthquake, also sometimes called the Great Tokyo Earthquake, rocked Japan on Sept. 1, 1923. One individual who used the earthquake opportunistically to dramatize what he saw as the moral fragility of 1920s Japan was philosopher Fukasaku Yasubumi. The tidal wave swept out a great section of the village near the beach, wrote Henry W. Kinney, a Tokyo-based editor for Trans-Pacific magazine. on September 1, 1923 a great earthquake hit Kanto Japan at a 7.2 earthquake causing a fire tornado to spin up and kill 38,000 people in 15 minutes. Then, as in Yokohama, fires spread, fueled by flimsy wooden houses and fanned by high winds. The jolt struck at 11:58 am, when many residents were cooking their lunches over open fires. The 1855 Ansei Earthquake is discussed in Greg Smits, Shaking Up Japan: Edo Society and the 1855 Catfish Prints,. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine The business was leveled. Some, however, can be more than 1km (0.6mi) tall, contain wind speeds over 200km/h (120mph), and persist for more than 20 minutes.[5]. Stay updated on the latest visitor information. The initial jolt was followed a few minutes later by a 40-foot-high tsunami. ", This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 00:05. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. a fire tornado or 'dragon twist', which demolished the Honjo Clothing Depot, whose fate is one of the more harrowing tales of the 1923 disaster. Of the 44,000 people who had gathered there, only 300 survived. Many other rumors dealt with Japans largest ethnic minority group, Koreans. The RMS Empress of Australia was about to leave Yokohama harbor when the earthquake struck. [28] The consulate itself lost the entirety of its records in the subsequent fires.[29]. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Moreover, twenty percent of the worlds earthquakes of 6.0 magnitude and over each year occur in Japan. The earthquake's force was so great that in Kamakura, over 60km (37mi) from the epicenter, it moved the Great Buddha statue, which weighs about 121 tonnes, almost 60 centimeters. Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), AAS Takes Action to Build Diversity & Equity in Asian Studies, Cultivating the Humanities & Social Sciences Initiative Grants, Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellowship in Southeast Asian Studies, Striving for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Asian Studies: Humanities Grants for Asian Studies Scholars, Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies Award, Distinguished Service to the Association for Asian Studies Award, Re-envisioning Asia: Contestations and Struggles in the Visual Arts, Volume 12:2 (Fall 2007): Natural Disasters in Asia: Geography and Environment, Miura Tsaku, Hijji arawareru kyiku no kka ni suite [About the effect of education in times of a crisis] (. A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials. Tens of thousands of working-class Japanese found refuge in an empty patch of ground near the river. y)8$(I. "Price shocks in regional markets: Japan's Great Kant Earthquake of 1923. If so, they reveal more than they change. Many people died when their feet became stuck on melting tarmac. Only 300 of the people gathered there survived. It presented exactly the aspect of a gigantic Christmas pudding over which the spirits were blazing, devouring nothing. *Tdyjd+e&).V[&Ytk8TC1Su9Bee*FdMKm fsLa-R5"kYL5%Y~1uvR&`Z[Rw?$/`[=-{Uzb45RkXb-oM[-_iO)9M? The earthquake, I suggest, fostered a culture of catastrophe defined by political and ideological opportunism, contestation, and resilience, as well as a culture of reconstruction in which elites sought to not only rebuild Tokyo, but also reconstruct the Japanese nation and its people. Tokyo is located near a fault zone beneath the Izu Peninsula which, on average, causes a major earthquake about once every 70 years,[54] and is also located near the Sagami Trough, a large subduction zone that has potential for large earthquakes. In revealing, disasters give students and scholars wonderful insights into human nature, cultural and social constructions, and illuminate the many relationshipsbetween man, nature, state, and even the cosmosthat define our existence. Why did i.. Quoted in Nose Yoritoshi, Fukk seishin nahen ni ariya [Whereabouts is the spiritual restoration? Fortunately, this area did not suffer from fire. From Washington, President Calvin Coolidge took the lead in rallying the United States. The Taisho Emperor and Empress Teimei were on holiday in the mountains, and so escaped the disaster. "{/A TZ @M-[c !t GR The following 27 files are in this category, out of 27 total. Yonemuras bulletins helped to galvanize an international relief effort, led by the United States, that saved thousands from near-certain death or prolonged misery. In contrast to London, where typhoid fever had been steadily declining since the 1870s, the rate in Tokyo remained high, more so in the upper-class residential northern and western districts than in the densely populated working-class eastern district. Sheldon Garon, Fashioning a Culture of Diligence and Thrift: Savings and Frugality Campaigns in Japan, 19001931, in Sharon Minichiello, ed., Susanna Hoffman, After Atlas Shrugs: Cultural Change or Persistence After A Disaster, in. And the quake may have emboldened right-wing forces at the very moment that the country was poised between military expansion and an embrace of Western democracy, only 18 years before Japan would enter World War II. 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