Japan’s Kanto region spans the central and eastern parts of Honshu Island in Japan, with a total area of ??30,000 square kilometers. Japan’s important industrial zone, Keihin Industrial Zone, is located in the Kanto region. On September 1, 1923, Saturday, the Yokohama-Tokyo area was bustling with people coming and going. Businessmen and office workers were still busy in the office buildings, while housewives started cooking. Because it was Saturday, the station was lined with people preparing to go on vacation. At 11:58, the Kanto Plain area suddenly made bursts of "quacking" sounds, and the ground shook up and down, followed by bursts of shaking. The land that had always been quiet and steady was now restless: swaying from side to side, shaking up and down, and undulating. People seemed to be in a small boat on the sea on the peaks of the valleys, unable to stand or move, and could only obey the orders of the people who had lost their previous stability. The mercy of the earth. People were thrown into the air by the trembling earth, dying or being injured. People who were not killed or injured tried to escape from the crumbling houses, but their feet failed. The rows and rows of various houses rooted in the earth could not withstand the "test" of the violent shaking of the earth. They shook, tiles fell, walls fell, and houses collapsed. Very few houses can withstand such a severe "test". Therefore, those who barely struggled to escape from their houses did not escape their bad luck, or were killed or injured by the collapsed houses, or were buried in the rubble. Some people were so shocked by the sudden earthquake that they became numb. They watched helplessly as the collapsing buildings rushed toward them and sat there waiting for death. The rumble of the earthquake, the groans of the injured, and the shouts of the uninjured all mingled together, which was horrifying. Most people were helpless in the turbulence caused by the earthquake and were buried alive in collapsed houses. Many people died before they had time to figure out what happened. The magnitude of this sudden earthquake reached 8.1 on the Richter scale. The wide scope of the attack, the large area affected, and the high number of deaths are truly rare in Japanese history. Those trapped in collapsed buildings were unable to extricate themselves, and those lucky enough to be alive were unable to rescue them. Even if a person is not killed by the earthquake, he can only see his relatives dying under the rubble until death comes. No one came to rescue the people who were uninjured or only slightly injured under the rubble of collapsed houses. A few days later, they died of hunger and thirst. In the Great Kanto Earthquake, in addition to the collapse of houses that caused heavy casualties, the earth also opened a bloody mouth - the large cracks caused by the earthquake directly swallowed up human flesh and blood. Some people managed to escape from the collapsing houses, but fell into the cracks in the earth and were drowned alive by the emerging underground water; those who were not drowned tried to climb up from the cracks, but the "bloody mouth"—— The cracks suddenly closed again, and many people were squeezed to death. After the car fell into the fissures, when the fissures merged, the car and the people on the car were squeezed into discus and meat cakes by the extremely powerful pressure. From time to time, heartbreaking howls could be heard from the fissures. Some cracks in the ground spurted out water jets, hitting the ground directly. The bodies of people squeezed to death in the cracks were sprayed to the ground by the powerful current. Some people trapped in the rubble were drowned by water emerging from the ground. The crack in the ground tore the house in half and swallowed all the people in the house into the crack. The violent crustal movement caused by the earthquake caused landslides and ground cracks, and large landslides occurred in many places. A large forest slid down the valley from Tianhu Mountain at a speed of more than 90 kilometers per hour, ran over a railway, and poured a lot of human body fragments into Xiangmo Bay. The seawater for several kilometers was dyed red. At Negawa Railway Station, a train carrying 200 passengers collided with a wall of mud and water caused by the earthquake. The huge landslide, which was more than 180 meters wide and more than 15 meters deep, brought the train, its passengers and cargo all into Xiangmo Bay and disappeared without a trace. The fate of the passengers on the train was self-evident. Some villages were buried in mudslides and landslides caused by earthquakes more than 30 meters deep, disappearing forever from the earth. All high-rise buildings in Tokyo were destroyed by the earthquake. Many masterpieces of ancient and modern architecture in Tokyo and other places were reduced to rubble during the earthquake. About 1/20 of the property nationwide was destroyed by nature in the earthquake. Earthquakes, ground fissures, mudslides, massive landslides, and buildings collapsing one after another made the living terrified and running around desperately. Driven by the desire to survive, people ran for their lives blindly, pushing each other, and countless people were trampled to death or injured. The tragedy was so horrible that it was too painful to see. But something worse and more terrifying than the earthquake happened. A major earthquake damaged gas pipelines in the Kanto region and caused fires everywhere.
However, nature seems to have gone crazy and is still not "satisfied" with earthquakes and fires. The earthquake triggered a tsunami, and the huge seawater hit the disaster-stricken Kanto region of Japan. Earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, water and fire combined, turning the Kanto region into a hell on earth. When the great earthquake occurred, it was just at noon. Citizens in Tokyo and other places were busy making lunch, and many homes were busy with fires. A huge earthquake struck, causing stoves to overturn, flames to fly, and sparks to fly. The two major cities in the Kanto region, Tokyo and Yokohama, are not only densely populated, but most of the houses are made of wood. The earthquake also destroyed the gas pipelines, causing the gas to overflow and ignite in case of fire. Residents' stoves provided a source of fire, and gas and wooden houses were good "fuels." The combination of several factors turned Tokyo and other places into a sea of ??flames, with explosions and people's cries for help coming one after another. After the earthquake, the fire demon began to wreak havoc in the Kanto region. Coincidentally, a major fire also occurred after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, but the severity was far less tragic than that in the Kanto region of Japan. After the fire broke out, it was difficult to control the fire, but the shock wave caused by the earthquake stirred up huge winds in the area. The fire area immediately turned into a sea of ????fire, and the wind helped the fire burn more and more intensely. Not only that, the strong wind also spread the fire in all directions. Wherever the fire spreads, a fire will burst into the sky. Factories are burning, schools are burning, residential buildings are burning... everything is burning. The entire Tokyo was engulfed in flames, as if the sky was burning and the earth was burning. The fire spread faster than people imagined. During the spread of fire, whenever flammable or explosive items are encountered, there will either be a big explosion or flames shooting into the sky. Because most of the area's homes had been nearly flattened by the earthquake before the fire, the fire was able to travel unimpeded. Fire brigades from Tokyo and other places were mobilized to fight the fire demon, but due to the damage of underground water pipes, there was no water source at all. Naturally, the firefighters could not fight the fire with their bare hands, and the collapsed houses had blocked the streets, making it impossible for fire trucks to pass. The fire truck was unable to move even after entering the fire scene. Facing fires and earthquakes, people are almost helpless and let them wreak havoc. The most tragic thing is the survivors who were crushed in the rubble. If there was no fire, these people might still be rescued. After the fire broke out, many survivors among the ruins and rubble were burned to death by the fire. Some people who escaped the earthquake disaster were surrounded by fire. The billowing smoke knocked them down, and the fire burned them to death. The pungent stench of burnt human flesh filled the air. The Great Kanto Earthquake did not last long, but the fire after the earthquake burned for three days and three nights, until everything in the fire scene was reduced to ashes. People who finally escaped the earthquake had to avoid the terrifying fire demon in panic. The panicked crowd left the residential area, left the fire scene, and rushed to the open space outdoors. Streets, squares, parks, beaches, school playgrounds and other places have become places of refuge for people to escape fires. For a time, many open areas were filled with people. A military uniform factory has an open space similar to a stadium, which is filled with tens of thousands of refugees. There is no fire around here yet, so it is still a safe zone for the time being. Before the crowd who had crowded here had time to rejoice in escaping from the tiger's mouth, fire rushed towards this place from all directions. The fire surrounded the clothing factory as quickly as possible, and the encirclement became smaller and smaller. The victims trapped in the encirclement were in a mess, scurrying around like headless flies. Even if they were not burned to death by the fire, they were trampled to death. All exits were blocked by fire and people had no way out. The fire began to consume everyone's life. Thick smoke completely enveloped the place, and many people died of suffocation due to lack of oxygen. None of the 32,000 people who took refuge here survived, and the scene was horrific. The Asakusa area was almost completely destroyed, and the water in the park pools was burned dry! There is a Guanyin Hall in the garden. The walls of the hall are made of wood, which is the most susceptible to fire. Not a single rafter or tile was damaged. The refugees were surrounded by fire, and more than 30,000 people gathered here. People were crowded everywhere inside and outside the hall. Everyone chanted the holy name of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and they all escaped the disaster. In 1925, I attended the East Asian Buddhist Conference with all the great sages and went to Asakusa District in person. All I saw were newly built cabins. Only the ancient Guanyin Temple stood majestically. People inside and outside the hall prostrated themselves on the ground one after another. I sincerely sighed that the great master’s compassion was truly extreme! The whole country of Japan, in view of such a catastrophic disaster, is amazed that not a single rafter of the wooden-walled Guanyin Hall was damaged! The evidence is conclusive and the spirit should be clear. Even if you want to not believe it, it is impossible.
(Vernacular translation) Selected from Li Yuanjing’s 1936 "Records of Recent Inspirations of Guanyin"
Master Jingxin said in "A Brief Introduction to Guanyin Bodhisattva's Universal Door" in 1965: "I visited Japan with a delegation last year. When I was there, I also went to worship the Guanyin Bodhisattva in Asakusa. The Asakusa Guanyin, which has saved 30,000 lives, is regarded as a national treasure by the Japanese and is tightly sealed in a Buddhist niche. It is not allowed to be opened without special instructions. "Excerpted from the "Selected Collection of Ancient and Modern Avalokitesvara Inductions" by the Ashamed Layman
Of the people who died in this disaster in Tokyo, 80% died in the post-earthquake fire, and most of the survivors were burned. In a park area in Yokohama, hundreds of people jumped into a pool to escape the fire. People sit in the water with only their heads above the water in an attempt to escape the fire demon. But after the fire hit, sparks flew around their heads and many of their hairs were burned. More than 24,000 people who tried to escape the fire in Yokohama Park were surrounded by flames and burned alive. Even the lake in the park was steaming hot from the fire, and people who jumped into the lake were scalded to death by the hot water in the lake. The fire turned the Kanto region of Japan into a hell on earth, full of murderous intent. What’s incredible is that even the people on the beach couldn’t save their lives. Thousands of victims fled to the beach, jumped into the sea and grabbed onto floating objects and the edges of boats. Water and fire are incompatible, so it seems natural to jump into the sea to escape the fire. However, this time it turned into something else completely. A few hours later, an explosion occurred at an oil depot near the beach, and more than 100,000 tons of oil was injected into Yokohama Bay. The fire ignited the oil on the water, turning Yokohama Bay into a veritable sea of ??fire. More than 3,000 people who took refuge in the sea were killed by the fire. If you can't hide from the fire demon in water, there will be almost nowhere to hide in the entire Kanto region. In Yokohama, fires destroyed more than 60,000 houses, accounting for about 60% of the city's total houses. Therefore, the epicenter of the earthquake was at the bottom of Xiangmo Bay, which caused a large-scale tsunami. Due to the strong earthquake, large-scale movement of the seafloor crust occurred. The maximum vertical movement of the seafloor near Oshima reached 400 meters, and it moved 4 meters to the north. The seafloor rose near Tateyama and moved 3 meters southeast. Such violent movements of the seafloor crust caused the seawater to surge into huge waves, violently impacting the coast. After earthquakes and fires, large-scale tsunamis occurred again. In order to escape earthquakes and fires, people who had a chance to escape began to look for a place where they could not be pressed down by collapsed buildings and where fires could not burn them. The only places that satisfy both requirements are beaches, ports and marinas. As a result, fearful people flocked to beaches, docks, and ports in Tokyo, Yokohama and other places. However, the tsunami caused by the earthquake set off huge waves, which rushed like a devil to the ports, docks, and beaches along the Aomo Bay—places that the victims thought were safe places to live. The sea suddenly lost the tenderness and romance described by writers, and became ferocious and terrifying. When the evacuated victims saw huge waves more than ten meters high coming from across the sky, they hurriedly ran inland, trampling many people to death. In fact, it is difficult to escape from the tsunami, because the huge waves hit the coast at a speed of 750 kilometers per hour, so people on the shore are instantly swallowed up by the big waves, or are swept to the depths of the ocean, or are swept away by the big waves. Throwing them into the air, some were thrown to the land by huge waves. The various ships anchored in various ports and piers were either broken or sunk by the fierce waves, or they were knocked into and sunk by each other under the impact of the tsunami. After the tsunami receded, it swept away all the broken ships. A larger fishing boat was moored in Yokohama Port. Huge waves smashed it into pieces, and no one on board survived. The ports and terminal facilities in Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as the houses destroyed in the earthquake, were also looted by the huge waves in the tsunami. After the violent sea calmed down, beaches in Tokyo and other places turned into large garbage dumps, filled with roofs, bed boards, doors and windows of wooden houses, ship fragments and human corpses. There are similar things floating on the sea. But these remnants are only a small part of what is left after the violent anger of the sea, and there is no time to recede with the tide. Most of them are swallowed by the sea and have long since disappeared. The tsunami caused by this earthquake sank more than 8,000 ships of all types, and all ports and docks in Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Chiba and other places were paralyzed. These places experienced a real catastrophe.
Earthquake statistics
At 11:58 on September 1, 1923, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake occurred on the seabed of Aimo Bay, 90 kilometers south of Tokyo. The tsunami caused by the earthquake hit the Kanto Plain region of Japan, with Tokyo and Yokohama suffering the most damage. 24 hours later, another strong earthquake occurred in the Kanto Plain area. Hundreds of aftershocks occurred in Japan over the following week.
Before the disaster occurred, there was a loud thunder-like noise underground, and the earth shook violently with a roar. Buildings began to shake, and huge cracks opened in the ground, making it impossible for people to balance. Then houses and other buildings began to collapse, and dust was flying everywhere. Seconds after the earthquake, terrified residents rushed outside. Suddenly, the streets and alleys in Tokyo were filled with water. Because when the earthquake happened, many people happened to be making lunch at home. At that time, Japanese households usually used charcoal as fuel. After the earthquake, red charcoal residue was scattered on the straw mats or floors, and splashed on the paper walls. Within a few minutes, thousands of homes in Tokyo burst into flames. To make matters worse, the water supply pipelines in Tokyo were severely damaged by the earthquake and cannot be used. In the blink of an eye, the whole city was in flames. In this earthquake and fire, Tokyo lost 300,000 buildings. During the earthquake, 60,000 buildings collapsed in Yokohama, and almost all docks and ports were damaged. There are cracks all over the road. Dead bodies were everywhere in the city, and more people were buried underground and in rocks. In this disaster, 100,000 people died in Yokohama, 4,300 of whom were missing, 100,000 were seriously injured, and approximately 1.5 million people were left homeless.
On September 1, 1923, a strong earthquake of magnitude 7.9 occurred in the Kanto region of Japan. The earthquake-stricken areas include Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Shizuoka, Yamanashi and other places. The earthquake killed 150,000 people, left more than 2 million people homeless, and caused property losses of 6.5 billion yen. According to newspaper reports at the time, starving survivors tried to catch fish from ponds and lakes to satisfy their hunger and waited in two-mile lines for their daily rations or a rice ball per person. The earthquake also caused a cholera epidemic. For this reason, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government ordered martial law to prohibit people from entering the city to prevent the spread of the plague. At the same time, the Japanese government took this opportunity to massacre revolutionaries and Chinese and Koreans living in Japan.
On September 16, 1996, after accurate calculations by Japan's Kashima Corporation Technology Research Institute and other units, it was stated that the Great Kanto Earthquake that occurred in Japan in 1923 should have measured 8.1 on the Richter scale. In other words, the magnitude of the earthquake was twice as large as originally stated.
The Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan caused a huge disaster, with a total of 142,000 dead and missing people. Because Tokyo's seismometer had been destroyed at that time, the earthquake was calculated to be 7.9 on the Richter scale based on the records of the Sendai city seismometer.
Kashima Company conducted verification based on records at the time. They found that damage to the seismometer itself had been underestimated. Therefore, the magnitude of the earthquake was underestimated. Their new assessment of the earthquake was 8.1 based on actual conditions. According to the calculation method of earthquake magnitude on the Richter scale, a difference of 0.2 in magnitude means exactly twice the size of the earthquake.
At noon on September 1, 1923, at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, the 22-year-old Regent Hirohito held a grand state banquet to entertain envoys from various countries. While the guests and guests were enjoying themselves, a violent and sudden tremor came from deep underground; amidst the shaking earth, the clanging bowls and chopsticks, and the stunned guests, Hirohito ignored the etiquette and staggered towards the garden outside the palace. . He saw a landscape like a landslide.
The newly completed 12-story Tokyo Tower was "cut in two like a matchstick"; countless tall buildings collapsed in an instant. Tokyo suddenly seemed low and empty, with only the noisy crowds, roaring sounds, and the gradually rising firelights connecting the island-like Akasaka Palace to the catastrophic Japan. Many biographers later wrote that in the palace compound where aftershocks continued, Hirohito had a dull expression and was "stunned".
As the first earthquake-resistant building in Japanese history, the Akasaka Palace suffered only minor damage on this day; in the small town of Nikko hundreds of miles away, the emperor and empress were also safe and sound. However, for the young crown prince and the "god on earth" who has always represented Japan for more than sixty years, this disaster, known as the "Great Kanto Earthquake", is like a lingering nightmare. To a large extent, it can be said that the long shadow it left behind made Hirohito's dull expression and the frantic figures of tens of millions of Japanese citizens freeze the Japanese history for the next twenty years.
At nearly noon on September 1, 1923, a major earthquake occurred at the bottom of Sagami Bay, Honshu, the main island of Japan. Within minutes, many buildings in Tokyo and Yokohama, about 80 kilometers to the north, were reduced to rubble.
In Tokyo, many families are cooking on their traditional charcoal stoves. The earthquake tipped over the stove, causing a fire.
The fire spread through the city's wooden houses. Families fled in panic, and then people found themselves trapped between the wall of fire and the Sumida River. The spreading fire forced them to jump into the river, where hundreds drowned.
The second disaster followed - a tsunami swept from the ocean. Almost 700,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and the death toll reached 130,000.
The earthquake made Japanese engineers and architects realize the need to design earthquake-resistant buildings. Their efforts were demonstrated in 1987, when Tokyo suffered a major earthquake that killed only 2 people and injured 53 others.
The epicenter is N35.2°E139.3°, located approximately in Sagami Bay near Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture. The magnitude of the earthquake was 7.9 on the Richter scale.