GREAT KANTO EARTHQUAKE, ONE OF WORLD’S LARGEST SEISMIC DISASTERS

BIJELJINA, AUGUST 31 /SRNA/ - The Great Kanto Earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.9–8.2 on the Richter scale, struck Japan on September 1, 1923, destroying the city of Yokohama and almost entirely devastating Tokyo; at least 142,000 people were killed, while 2.5 million were left homeless.

It was one of the 10 largest seismic disasters in the world ever recorded and the fifth earthquake with the most devastating consequences in modern world history.

Various sources indicate that the earthquake lasted between four and ten minutes.

The earthquake destroyed 570,000 houses and buildings in the Japanese capital, and most of the remaining structures were destroyed by a fire that broke out after the initial tremor.

The earthquake, known as the Great Kanto Earthquake /after the wider Tokyo area/ struck at exactly 11:58 a.m., with its hypocenter deep beneath the group of islands of Oshima in Sagami Bay in the Pacific.

It struck at a time when most residents of the capital were preparing lunch on gas stoves, which are widely used in Japan, causing a massive fire to break out immediately after the initial tremor.

The fire also spread to Yokohama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Shizuoka, cities and areas effectively connected to Tokyo.

A 12-metre-high tsunami was triggered in the Pacific Ocean after the earthquake, hitting the coast around the cities of Atami and Shizuoka and adding to the scale of the disaster.

The strongest initial earthquake was followed by as many as 57 aftershocks of lower intensity.

The tremors were so powerful that in Kamakura, the former capital located 60 kilometres from Tokyo, they shifted a 121-tonne outdoor statue of Buddha by 60 centimetres.

A large number of temples were also destroyed, all of which were built of wood, while some were consumed by fires that broke out in the aftermath.

In 1960, the Japanese government decided that September 1 would be observed every year as Disaster Prevention Day, during which firefighters, police, military personnel and citizens conduct drills for major disasters.

Throughout Japan, sirens continue to sound every September 1, while citizens gather in streets, squares and parks, schoolchildren at schools, university students at their faculties, factory workers at their workplaces, and employees in the courtyards of office buildings.