1923 Great Kantō earthquake

The Great Kantō earthquake (関東大地震, Kantō dai-jishin, Kantō ō-jishin) also known in Japanese as Kantō daishinsai (関東大震災) 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. Extensive firestorms and even a fire whirl added to the death toll.

The ruined Ryōunkaku in Asakusa, which was later demolished

Quotes

• It began suddenly at 11:58 A.M. the first of September in the twelfth year of Taisho [1923]. A violent rocking deep in the earth shook the Kanto region on which the capital city of Tokyo rests. Houses creaked and whined, twisted grotesquely, and collapsed. Inhabitants were buried alive, while those lucky enough to flee in time ran about screaming like crazed animals. What had once been a thriving center of the civilized world was in the space of a moment transformed into hell itself. One aftershock came only to be followed by another violent tremor and yet another aftershock. Fires broke out all over the city, and great columns of smoke billowed up toward the sky as from a giant volcano. Tokyo was soon under a blanket of thick, black vapor. The terrible tremors left the population in the grip of fear. Then those outrageous rumors started spreading and pandemonium broke out.
  • Kaneko Fumiko, The Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman. M.E. Sharpe. 1991. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-87332-801-2. 

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