Mountainous and volcanic, Honshu experiences frequent earthquakes (the Great Kantō earthquake heavily damaged Tokyo in September 1923, and the earthquake of March 2011 moved the northeastern part of the island by varying amounts of as much as 5.3 m while causing devastating tsunamis). The 9.0 earthquake that struck the northeast coast of Honshu this past March is not likely to have such an impact on Japan’s history. The date was September 1, 1923, and the event was the Great Kanto Earthquake, at the time considered the worst natural disaster ever to strike quake-prone … Founded as Japan’s first “Foreign Settlement” in 1859, five years after U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry forced the shogun to open Japan to the West, Yokohama had grown into a cosmopolitan city of half a million. (Japan had occupied Korea in 1905, annexed it five years later and ruled the territory with an iron grip.) U.S. naval vessels set sail from China on the evening of September 2, and within a week, dozens of warships packed with relief supplies—rice, canned roast beef, reed mats, gasoline—filled Yokohama Harbor. The source of the 1923 Kanto earthquake is a megathrust between Philippine Sea plate and Honshu plate. The three-story Grand Hotel, an elegant Victorian villa on the seafront that had played host to Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham and William Howard Taft, collapsed, crushing hundreds of guests and employees. The location of the disaster is shown on the map. The Great Kanto Earthquake, sometimes called the Great Tokyo Earthquake, rocked Japan on September 1, 1923. Continue Japan scholar Kenneth Pyle of the University of Washington says that conservative elites were already nervous about democratic forces emerging in society, and “the 1923 earthquake does sort of begin to reverse some of the liberal tendencies that appear right after World War I....After the earthquake, there’s a measurable increase in right-wing patriotic groups in Japan that are really the groundwork of what is called Japanese fascism.” Peter Duus, an emeritus professor of history at Stanford, states that it was not the earthquake that kindled right-wing activities, “but rather the growth of the metropolis and the emergence of what the right wing regarded as heartless, hedonistic, individualistic and materialist urban culture.” The more significant long-term effect of the earthquake, he says, “was that it set in motion the first systematic attempt at reshaping Tokyo as a modern city. The Great Kantō earthquake (関東大震災, Kantō daishinsai?) The earthquake struck at 11:58:44 am JST (2:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923.It lasted between 4 and 10 minutes. 75 years ago, on 1 September 1923, one of the worst earthquakes in world history hit the Kanto plain and destroyed Tokyo, Yokohama and the surroundings. Cookie Policy As the evening of the quake approached, Kinney observed, “Yokohama, the city of almost half a million souls, had become a vast plain of fire, of red, devouring sheets of flame which played and flickered. Attracting entrepreneurs, fugitives, traders, spies and drifters from every corner of the world, the port rose “like a mirage in the desert,” wrote one Japanese novelist. The Science Behind the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, The Sumatra Earthquake of December 26, 2004, The 8 Most Powerful Earthquakes Ever Recorded, A History of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, Behind the Accounts of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, J.D., University of Washington School of Law, B.A., History, Western Washington University. The Great Kanto Earthquake, also sometimes called the Great Tokyo Earthquake, rocked Japan on Sept. 1, 1923. |, (Rue des Archives / The Granger Collection, New York), (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). https://www.thoughtco.com/the-great-kanto-earthquake-195143 (accessed May 15, 2021). struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58:44 am JST (2:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923.Varied accounts hold that the duration of the earthquake was between 4 and 10 minutes. A 60- by 60-mile segment of the Philippine oceanic plate ruptured and thrust itself against the Eurasian continental plate, releasing a massive burst of tectonic energy. From Washington, President Calvin Coolidge took the lead in rallying the United States. Using a rich array of source material, J. Charles Schencking tells for the first time the graphic tale of Tokyo's destruction and rebirth. Fifteen minutes later, they had spread to 136. "The Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan, 1923." The massive earthquake struck the Japane According to some estimates, the death toll was as high as 6,000. Japan's ancient capital at Kamakura, almost 40 miles from the epicenter, was inundated by a 20-foot wave that killed 300 people, and its 84-ton Great Buddha was shifted by roughly 3 feet. In the wood-built cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, upended cooking fires and broken gas mains set off firestorms that raced through homes and offices. The Great Kanto Earthquake obliterated all of that in a single afternoon. The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake caused widespread destruction in Chiba Prefecture, most notably in the southernmost part of the Bōsō Peninsula, where 1,300 residents were killed. The 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and millions of other books are available for Amazon Kindle. The quake struck at 11:58 a.m. on September 1, 1923. Could Weirdly Straight Bolts of Lightning Be a Sign of Dark Matter? The Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan, 1923. Historiography of the Great Kantō Earthquake has mainly focused on issues concerning the reconstruction of Japanese society after the disaster. Dr. Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian history and culture. The Kantō region, which encompasses the cities of Tokyo, Yokohama and Kawasaki, is situated in the collision zone of at least four tectonic plates, and is one of the most seismically vulnerable locations on Earth. Then there was Taki Yonemura, chief engineer of the government wireless station in Iwaki, a small town 152 miles northeast of Tokyo. The initial jolt was followed a few minutes later by a 40-foot-high tsunami. The earthquake, he has written, “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.”. Kanda Ogawamachi, after the Great Kanto earthquake, 1923. Ultimately, the disaster sparked both soul-searching and nationalism in Japan. Henry W. Kinney, an editor for Trans-Pacific Magazine who worked out of Tokyo, was in Yokohama when the disaster struck. Fire and tremors together claimed 90% of the homes in Yokohama and left 60% of Tokyo's people homeless. “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 in Japan, 1923." Szczepanski, Kallie. Of the 44,000 people who had gathered there, only 300 survived. It presented exactly the aspect of a gigantic Christmas pudding over which the spirits were blazing, devouring nothing. 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Containing the photographic record of their encounter with the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the album includes some of the earliest photographs of the destruction taken by Americans, and consists of over 100 original photographs taken in Yokohama, Kyoto, Shanghai, and Hawaii, as well as many photographs purchased in Japan that document the devastation. Despite the scale of recent events, it is the Great Kantō Earthquake (Kantō Daishinsai) of 1923 that remains Japan’s worst “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. Current Research Projects . Three hundred people died in Kamakura, the ancient capital, when a 20-foot-high wave washed over the town. Even though it is very concise, the human spirit shines through. Every year on the same date, drills and other activities are … A series of towering waves swept away thousands of people. Learn more. He wrote. According to survivors, the initial quaking lasted for about 14 seconds—long enough to bring down nearly every building on Yokohama’s watery, unstable ground. It was estimated that 140,000 people died in the dreadful Kantō Earthquake of 1923. Roving bands of Japanese prowled the ruins of Yokohama and Tokyo, setting up makeshift roadblocks and massacring Koreans across the earthquake zone. The quake's magnitude is estimated at 7.9 to 8.2 on the Richter scale, and its epicenter was in the shallow waters of Sagami Bay, about 25 miles south of Tokyo. Advertising Notice The Taisho Emperor and Empress Teimei were on holiday in the mountains, and so escaped the disaster. Give a Gift. Nobel nominee Junicho Tanizaki, who spent two years in Yokohama writing screenplays, marveled at “a riot of loud Western colors and smells—the odor of cigars, the aroma of chocolate, the fragrance of flowers, the scent of perfume.”. Although both were devastated, … devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, The Great Kantō Earthquake. The Great Kanto Earthquake was one of the deadliest earthquakes in Japanese history that killed an estimated 142,800 people. The wave of good feeling between the two countries would soon dissipate, however, in mutual accusations. The Great Kanto Earthquake 関東大震災写真集 site contains 199 images, which were scanned from black & white still photos matted on a black background. The death toll would be about 140,000, including 44,000 who had sought refuge near Tokyo’s Sumida River in the first few hours, only to be immolated by a freak pillar of fire known as a “dragon twist.” The temblor destroyed two of Japan’s largest cities and traumatized the nation; it also whipped up nationalist and racist passions. The Great Kantō earthquake (関東大地震, Kantō dai-jishin) struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST (02:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923.Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Within hours of the catastrophe, rumors spread that Korean immigrants were poisoning wells and using the breakdown of authority to plot the overthrow of the Japanese government. Szczepanski, Kallie. It had a magnitude of 7.9. *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the earthquake and subsequent fires by survivors *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents Of the numerous disasters, both natural and man-made, to strike Japan during the 20th century, the Great Kantō Earthquake was among the worst, and the most significant. Then, as in Yokohama, fires spread, fueled by flimsy wooden houses and fanned by high winds. The offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami in the bay, which struck the island of Oshima at a height of 39 feet and hit the Izu and Boso Peninsulas with 20-foot waves. In the hours and days following, nationalist and racist rhetoric took hold across Japan. For those interested in viewing the collection, please contact Japanese Studies Librarian, Ann Marie Davis, at davis.5257@osu.edu or Eric Johnson, Lead Curator of RBML at johnson.4156@osu.edu . Szczepanski, Kallie. The affected regions were Tokyo, Yokohama, and the coastal regions along Sagami Bay. Keep up-to-date on: © 2021 Smithsonian Magazine. “An overwhelming disaster has overtaken the people of the friendly nation of Japan,” he declared on September 3. Just eight years later, the nation took its first steps toward World War II with the invasion and occupation of Manchuria. Traditional figures offered words of solace: Crown Prince Hirohito 88 years ago; his son, Emperor Akihito, in 2011. The Great Kanto Earthquake, also sometimes called the Great Tokyo Earthquake, rocked Japan on Sept. 1, 1923. (2020, August 28). At two minutes to noon a magnitude approximate 7.9 earthquake toppled structures, crushed people, and unsettled everyone who survived. In the Search to Stall Aging, Biotech Startups Are Out for Blood, An Exclusive Look at James Turrell's Visionary Artwork in the Arizona Desert, An Epic Monarch Migration Faces New Threats. The first shock hit at 11:58 a.m., emanating from a seismic fault six miles beneath the floor of Sagami Bay, 30 miles south of Tokyo. The north shore of Sagami Bay rose permanently by almost 6 feet, and parts of the Boso Peninsula moved 15 feet laterally. . America's Tsunami of Aid: Humanity, Opportunism, and Betrayal following Japan's 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake. California Do Not Sell My Info From the waterfront promenade, known as the Bund, to the Bluff, the hillside neighborhood favored by foreign residents, Yokohama was where East met West, and liberal ideas—including democracy, collective bargaining and women’s rights—transfixed those who engaged them. Twenty expatriate regulars at the Yokohama United Club, the city’s most popular watering hole, died when the concrete building pancaked. Joshua Hammer is a contributing writer to Smithsonian magazine and the author of several books, including The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts and The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird. The total death toll from the earthquake and its aftereffects is estimated at about 142,800. Although the shock waves had weakened by the time they reached through the Kanto region to Tokyo, 17 miles north of Yokohama, many poorer neighborhoods built on unstable ground east of the Sumida River collapsed in seconds. Japanese expressed resentment toward Western rescuers; demagogues in the United States charged that the Japanese had been “ungrateful” for the outpouring of help they received. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. Terms of Use Samuel Robinson, the Canadian skipper of the Empress of Australia, took hundreds of refugees aboard, organized a fire brigade that kept the ship from being incinerated by advancing flames, then steered the crippled vessel to safety in the outer harbor. The Great Kantō earthquake (関東大震災, Kantō daishinsai?) Though they may dispute its effects, historians agree that the destruction of two great population centers gave voice to those in Japan who believed that the embrace of Western decadence had invited divine retribution. About 140,000 people fell victim to this earthquake and the fires caused by it. was a Japanese natural disaster in the Kantō region of the island of Honshū. Only 300 of the people gathered there survived. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-great-kanto-earthquake-195143. Reports estimate it to have been between 7.9 to 8.2 on the Richter scale. Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake of 1923, also called Great Kanto earthquake, earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 that struck the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area near noon on September 1, 1923. 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. – The Great Kantō Earthquake and the Chimera of National Reconstruction in Japan, by J. Charles Schencking, 2013 The Kanda Ogawamachi business district, c. 1920. Although both were devastated, the city of Yokohama was hit even worse than Tokyo. It moved Tokyo into the ranks of world metropolises.”, University of Melbourne historian J. Charles Schencking sees the rebuilding of Tokyo as a metaphor for something larger. The 1923 Great Kanto earthquake struck the Kanto plain on the Japanese main island of Honshu at 11:58 on the morning of September 1, 1923. In September 1923, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated eastern Japan, killing more than 120,000 people and leaving two million homeless. According to one police report, fires had broken out in 83 locations by 12:15. For the next three days, Yonemura sent a stream of reports that alerted the world to the unfolding tragedy. Tens of thousands of working-class Japanese found refuge in an empty patch of ground near the river. The quake destroyed the city’s water mains, paralyzing the fire department. The Kanto earthquake of 1 September 1923 in Japan is one of the most destructive earthquakes in the world, and over 100,000 people were sacrificed in the disaster. Following Japan's most deadly and destructive natural disaster—the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923—Americans responded to Japan's suffering with an outpouring of aid unrivalled to this day. The earthquake struck at 11:58:44 am JST (2:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923. People fled toward the Sumida River, drowning by the hundreds when bridges collapsed. On September 1, 1923, a devastating earthquake struck the Kantō plain where Tokyo and Yokohama are located, causing fires that created a windstorm that in turn propelled a raging conflagration. Vast portions of the hills facing the ocean had slid into the sea.”. This account of the Kantō Earthquake of 1923 shows both the heroics and the heartbreak of the Japanese people. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 A Brief History of the Disaster As illuminating as the photographs and other materials from the Reynolds Collections are, it seemed to us as we were working on the site that it would be helpful to provide some historical context for the Collection, and the images it contains. The date was September 1, 1923, and the event was the Great Kanto Earthquake, at the time considered the worst natural disaster ever to strike quake-prone Japan. Approximately 6,000 unlucky Koreans, as well as more than 700 Chinese mistaken for Koreans, were hacked and beaten to death with swords and bamboo rods. Enormous portions of the two great cities were destroyed. ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/the-great-kanto-earthquake-195143. Suddenly, a great earthquake shook the Kantō region of Japan, a major city now home to 42 million people. The police and military in many places stood by for three days, allowing vigilantes to carry out these murders in what is now called the Korean Massacre. Privacy Statement WHOLE CITY ABLAZE WITH NUMEROUS CASUALTIES. “I saw a thirty-foot sampan [boat] that had been lifted neatly on top of the roof of a prostrated house. It lasted between 4 and 10 minutes. In September 1923, Tokyo became a hell on earth. The Earthquake, Fires, and Breakdown of Order On 1 September 1923 Tokyo’s vulnerabilities were exposed unambiguously. Hours after the earthquake, Yonemura picked up a faint signal from a naval station near Yokohama, relaying word of the catastrophe. Like the 1923 quake, this one unleashed secondary disasters: a tsunami that washed away dozens of villages; mudslides; fires; and damage to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors that emitted radiation into the atmosphere (and constituted the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986). Before the Great Kanto Earthquake struck, Japan was full of optimism. The Great Kanto Earthquake turned 93 on 1st September 2016. Meanwhile, a wall of water surged from the fault zone toward the coast of Honshu. “Over everything had settled a thick white dust,” he remembered years later, “and through the yellow fog of dust, still in the air, a copper-coloured sun shone upon this silent havoc in sickly reality.” Fanned by high winds, fires from overturned cookstoves and ruptured gas mains spread. The so-called Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1923 in Japan devastated the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama and much of the surrounding area. Fuel, food and water were hard to come by weeks after the earthquake, and the Japanese government acknowledged that it had been ill-prepared for a calamity on this scale. The Great Kantō earthquake (関東大震災, Kantō daishinsai) was a Japanese natural disaster in the Kantō region of the island of Honshū. All told, 45 percent of Tokyo burned before the last embers of the inferno died out on September 3. Nevertheless, there are parallels. A Portrait of Anne of Cleves or Catherine Howard? Yonemura tapped out a 19-word bulletin—CONFLAGRATION SUBSEQUENT TO SEVERE EARTHQUAKE AT YOKOHAMA AT NOON TODAY. No center symbolized the country’s dynamism more than Yokohama, known as the City of Silk. The flames closed in from all directions, and then, at 4 p.m., a 300-foot-tall “fire tornado” blazed across the area. Here and there a remnant of a building, a few shattered walls, stood up like rocks above the expanse of flame, unrecognizable....It was as if the very earth were now burning. 18th Annual Photo Contest Winners and Finalists Announced! 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. The Great Kanto Earthquake triggered another horrifying result. The earthquake also exposed the darker side of humanity. 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. Regular contributor Joshua Hammer is the author of Yokohama Burning, about the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. It was the deadliest earthquake in Japanese history. The death toll from the temblor was estimated to have exceeded 140,000. “The cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, and surrounding towns and villages, have been largely if not completely destroyed by earthquake, fire and flood, with a resultant appalling loss of life and destitution and distress, requiring measures of urgent relief.” The American Red Cross, of which Coolidge was the titular head, initiated a national relief drive, raising $12 million for victims. Yonemura’s bulletins helped to galvanize an international relief effort, led by the United States, that saved thousands from near-certain death or prolonged misery. ALL TRAFFIC STOPPED—and dispatched it to an RCA receiving station in Hawaii. As early as mid-afternoon on September 1, the day of the quake, reports, and rumors started that the Koreans had set the disastrous fires, were poisoning wells, looting ruined homes, and planning to overthrow the government. 1923 Kantō Great Earthquake Postcards The new collection is currently housed in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (RBML). This earthquake destroyed Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka. In less than three days, a magnitude approximate 7.9 earthquake and subsequent conflagrations reduced nearly half of Japan’s capital to a blackened, rubble-filled, corpse-strewn wasteland of desolation. Map of Japan showing the epicentre of the 1923 earthquake and the cities for which we obtained price data. Most horrifying of the immediate results was the fate of 38,000 to 44,000 working-class Tokyo residents who fled to the open ground of the Rikugun Honjo Hifukusho, once called the Army Clothing Depot. Then came fires, roaring through the wooden houses of Yokohama and Tokyo, the capital, burning everything—and everyone—in their path. or Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Magazine The epicenter of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake was deep beneath Izu Ōshima Island in Sagami Bay. Capt. For the city was gone.”, The tragedy prompted countless acts of heroism. Down at the docks of Yokohama, Japan’s biggest port and its gateway to the West, hundreds of well-wishers were seeing off the Empress of Australia, a 615-foot luxury steamship bound for Vancouver. It was the deadliest earthquake in Japanese history. 1923 Kanto earthquake intensity-2.png 512 × 512; 49 KB. A number that included almost 45,000 people who had tried to protect themselves near Tokyo’s Sumida River but who were all burnt alive by an awful 100m tornado of fire known as a “dragon twist”. Extensive firestorms and even a fire tornado added to the death toll. This dislocation proved relatively short-lived, but identifying the key causal factors behind the rapid recovery is not easy. Thomas Ryan, a 22-year-old U.S. naval ensign, freed a woman trapped inside the Grand Hotel in Yokohama, then carried the victim—who had suffered two broken legs—to safety, seconds ahead of a fire that engulfed the ruins. The radio man “flashed the news across the sea at the speed of sunlight,” reported the New York Times, “to tell of tremendous casualties, buildings leveled by fire, towns swept by tidal waves...disorder by rioters, raging fire and wrecked bridges.”. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. Or, as philosopher and social critic Fukasaku Yasubumi declared at the time: “God cracked down a great hammer” on the Japanese nation. ThoughtCo. My own view is that by reducing the expatriate European community in Yokohama and putting an end to a period of optimism symbolized by that city, the Kanto earthquake accelerated Japan’s drift toward militarism and war. The quake struck at 11:58 a.m., so many people were cooking lunch. 1923 Great Kantō earthquake relief efforts (15 F) Rumor of the Great Kanto-earthquake in 1923 (10 F) Media in category "1923 Great Kantō earthquake" The following 24 files are in this category, out of 24 total. The photographs presented in this special online exhibition were taken by August Kengelbacher.They are a courtesy of Peter Kengelbacher. Minutes later, another intense seismic wave battered eastern Japan. The city of Yokohama was hit even worse than Tokyo was, although both were devastated. Soon, the entire city was ablaze. More than 100,000 people died when the Great Kantō Earthquake struck the Tokyo metropolitan area on September 1, 1923. 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