The death toll is estimated to have been 142,800. Some journalists who came to Tokyo were mistaken for Koreans and killed due to differences in their pronunciations. The Sōaikai eventually ordered 4,000 Koreans to perform unpaid labor cleaning up the city ruins for over two months. The Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011 caused tremendous damage to people's lives and the natural environment over a vast area, from the Tohoku region (the northeastern district of Japan) to the Kanto region (the area around Tokyo). The segment ruptured in comparable events in 1605 and in 1498. Writing in the Home Ministry journal Chihō gyōsei, future Minister of Commerce and Industry, Tawara Magoichi suggested that the “Korean incident” exposed a “major defect of the national spirit.” Educator Oku Hidesaburō wrote in the education journal Kyōiku, that the killing of Koreans illustrated “a moral flaw that was common among ordinary Japanese.” On the floor of Japan’s parliament—known as the Imperial Diet—MP Tabuchi Toyokichi declared that the murder of Korean was a “gross act of inhumanity” and demanded that the government “apologize to its Korean victims.” No formal apology was issued. [5]:94, Yamaguchi was publicly blamed by Japanese officials for starting the rumors of Korean mobs, but this logically incoherent charge was never formalized. Moreover, the heavy damage sustained by Tokyo’s infrastructure made the transportation of donated medical supplies and medical personnel from across Japan exceedingly difficult. While nearly 800,000 people evacuated Tokyo or Yokohama temporarily after the 1 September disaster, many others flocked to parks or other open spaces in the capital. "[7]:85, Books denying the massacre and repeating the government frame story of 1923 became constant bestsellers in the 2010s. But Japan has a long history of damaging earthquakes. Messervey, from a letter dated March 5, 1924. The police continued to assist the killings or responded to reports of murder passively. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Overseeing restoration of political order, relief, and recovery in eastern Japan following disaster was more challenging than anyone, including Yamanashi, anticipated. Racism, hatred, resentment, and criminal opportunism all contributed to this tragedy. J. Charles Schencking. “Makeshift Schools and Education in the Ruins of Tokyo, 1923.” Japanese Studies 29:1 (May 2009): 131-143. [11] The arrival of foreigners and other people in Tokyo meant death. Some Koreans sought safety in police stations in order to escape the slaughter, but in some areas vigilantes broke into police stations and pulled them out. Be careful because Koreans are planning terrorism and robbery by arson and bombs."[8]:73. The force of the quake was so strong that a 93-ton Buddha statue 37 miles from the epicenter moved almost two feet. Largely forgotten, even by most Japanese, the quake leveled the great port city of Yokohama — home to a population of 5,000 expatriates — and burned down more than sixty percent of Tokyo. Image of Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan, after the September 1, 1923 earthquake. [20], Korean newspapers in Seoul were blocked from receiving information about the massacre by local police. eulogy for 2nd year, raising denial worries", https://www.asahi.com/senkyo/tochijisen/2020/kaihyo/, "関東大震災と朝鮮人虐殺「なかった」ことにしたい集会、誰が参加するのか？（石戸諭） – Yahoo!ニュース", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kantō_Massacre&oldid=1020231760, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 27 April 2021, at 23:42. [5]:104, After the massacre, Navy Minister Takarabe Takeshi praised the Japanese lynch mobs for their "martial spirit," describing them as a successful result of military conscription. In other cases, police officers handed groups of Koreans over to local vigilantes, who proceeded to kill them. [21]:115 Police chief Nishizaka himself distributed bidan stories of heroic police protecting Koreans, which he later admitted in an interview were carefully selected to omit unflattering aspects. Houses Collapsed in the Great Tokyo Earthquake. [19][5]:110 In July 1924 he was sentenced to two years in prison; it is unknown if he survived his imprisonment. Using figures published by the Japanese government, the total amount of cash contributed to Japan following the disaster amounted to roughly 22 million yen from which America provided 15.4 million yen (roughly 70 percent). This natural disaster is referred to today as the Great Kanto Earthquake. In Kanagawa Prefecture, home to the city of Yokohama, 781,000 of the prefecture’s total population found themselves homeless after 1 September. Masahiro Matsumura. Police regarded the labor union as a "nest of socialists" and were likely unsettled by the well-organized food relief program. The quake is remembered by Japanese authors as the Great Kanto Earthquake, Kanto being the name of the region which includes Tokyo. Yamanashi was a seasoned soldier who had served in active combat during Japan’s previous three wars: the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, and the First World War, 1914-1918. Within 30 minutes of the first tremor more than 130 major fires broke out across Tokyo alone. skips 1923 Korean massacre anniv. [15] Socialists such as Hirasawa Keishichi [ja] (平澤計七) and the Chinese communal leader Wang Xitian (王希天), were abducted and killed by local police and Imperial Army, who claimed the radicals intended to use the crisis as an opportunity to overthrow the Japanese government.[15][16]. The twenties and thirties of the twentieth century left a sad memory in Japan. Nothing prepared the soldiers—or others who ventured to Tokyo to assist with recovery—for the sights or smells that greeted them or the tasks at hand. It is virtually impossible to reach any general conclusion as to why select Japanese murdered Koreans following the disaster. What is much easier to analyze, however, is how a number of commentators interpreted these murderous episodes. [17], As knowledge of the lynch mobs spread through the Korean community, thousands attempted to flee the city. Providing medical assistance during the first few days following the disaster proved problematic as many hospitals, medical dispensaries, and clinics had been destroyed. As part of the recovery efforts after the earthquake, three new large parks were established—Hamachō Park, Sumida Park, and Kinshi Park—along with a … September 1: Korean labor union offers food relief, September 1–2: Police spread false rumors and give permission to kill, September 2–9: Japanese lynch mobs massacre Koreans and others, September 3–16: Police and army assassinate left-wing leaders, September 18-November: Show trials and unpaid labor, a massive earthquake struck the Kantō region, "Yokohama recalls texts describing 1923 'massacre' of Koreans", "1923 Kanto Earthquake Massacre seen through American viewpoints", "The Massacre of Koreans in Yokohama in the Aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923", "The Price of Identity: The 1923 Kantō Earthquake and Its Aftermath", "A play teaching the history of the Great Kanto Earthquake massacres to Japanese youth", "The Enemy Within: Earthquake, Rumors, and Massacre in the Japanese Empire", "Instability of empire: Earthquake, rumor, and the massacre of Koreans in the Japanese empire – ProQuest", "Tokyo gov. Shimbashi, (Kasumori), c. 1920. [5]:111 In Bunkyō, the police falsely reported that Koreans had poisoned the water and food supply. Tokyo police chief Maruyama Tsurukichi ordered the Sōaikai to confine Koreans to the camps to prevent them from spreading news of the massacre abroad. As destructive and dislocating as the earthquake and aftershocks were to people of eastern Japan in 1923, a far more deadly phenomenon erupted shortly after the initial seismic upheaval: fire. We wait with grateful anticipation for the arrival of more military forces.”. In the 2015 novel Green and Red (Midori to aka 『緑と赤』), by Zainichi novelist Fukazawa Ushio [ja] (深沢潮), the Zainichi protagonist learns about the massacre by reading about it in a history book, which serves to give excess weight to her fears over anti-Korean sentiment. The government also mobilized troops from around Japan for deployment to Tokyo and Yokohama. … 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. While the city burned and people evacuated, rumors began to fly like arrows. Navy vessels were also used to transport rice from military warehouses in Kobe, Osaka, Kure, and Sasebo. “The Price of Identity: The 1923 Earthquake and its Aftermath.” Korean Studies 20 (1996): 64-93. To the deaths caused by collapsing buildings, tsunami and fire we must also add the organized killings in the aftermath of the quake by Japanese civilians, police and the military of Koreans, Chinese, labor and political activists, and others, in a wave of violence that began on September 1 and went on for some time. From 16 to 21 September, 2,097,170 individuals received 3 go (450 grams) of rice. Refugees Fleeing the Fire, 1923. From the U.S. … After the massacre, Korean survivors painstakingly documented the extent of the massacre. In 2014, non fiction writer Katō Naoki documented the massacre in his book September on the Streets of Tokyo (Kugatsu, Tōkyō no rojō de 九月、東京の路上で). 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. It had a magnitude of 7.9. Michael Weiner. [21]:174 The playwright Koreya Senda did not write about the violence explicitly, but adopted the pen name "Koreya" after he was mistaken for a Korean by the mob. All Rights Reserved. [2] The massacre is also known as the Massacre of Koreans in 1923. Aftermath: The Ordeal of Restoration and Recovery. [26] In September 2020 a Japanese group held a rally in Sumida, Tokyo calling for a memorial to the massacre to be demolished, saying that the massacre never happened and the memorial constituted "hate speech against our ancestors. General Yamanashi later concluded that it took ten days for stability, peace, calm mindedness and public order to return. General Yamanashi Hanzō, the individual appointed to direct Japan’s Martial Law Headquarters on 20 September 1923, was no stranger to demanding administrative or military tasks. [22] The Governor-General also published and distributed propaganda leaflets with "beautiful stories" (bidan 美談) of Japanese protecting Koreans from lynch mobs. In a particularly egregious instance known as the Amakasu Incident, the married couple Sakae Ōsugi (Japan's first Esperanto teacher) and Noe Itō, both anarchists and feminists, were executed by Imperial Army officer Masahiko Amakasu along with their six-year-old nephew. Director Oh Chongkong (吳充功, 오충공) made two documentary films about the pogrom: Hidden Scars: The Massacre of Koreans from the Arakawa River Bank to Shitamachi in Tokyo (Kakusareta tsumeato: Tokyo aragawa dote shūhen kara Shitamachi no gyakusatsu 隠された爪跡: 東京荒川土手周辺から下町の虐殺, 1983) and The Disposed-of Koreans: The Great Kanto Earthquake and Camp Narashino (Harasagareta Chōsenjin: Kantō Daishinsai to Narashino shūyōjo 払い下げられた朝鮮人: 関東大震災と習志野収容所, 1986). The Great Kanto Earthquake is a superb work of historical scholarship and a major contribution to our understanding of modern Japan and modern natural disasters. In total, both the quake and fires that followed claimed the lives of nearly 130,000 people. Janet Borland. By the end of December, 151 million litres of water had been transported to Tokyo and Yokohama for distribution. Manseibashi Station, c. 1910. Great Kantō Earthquake- Flock of Refugees. What follows is the continuation of the contempory coverage of the disaster from a Yokohama-based English-language newspaper. "[5]:116 In 1996, historian J. Michael Allen remarked that the massacre is "hardly known outside Korea. [5]:108, Kanagawa Prefectural Police chief Nishizaka Katsuto reported that on the night of September 1 he gave his district chiefs "a certain mission to deal with the emergency situation," the details of which he refused to describe. Eventually, 52,000 troops arrived in eastern Japan to restore order, assist the relief and recovery efforts, and to repair damaged infrastructure. Both events were great earthquakes of magnitude 8.4. The quake struck at 11:58 a.m. on September 1, 1923. The M7.3 earthquake of 1 September in eastern region of Yamanashi Prefecture has been considered to be one of biggest aftershocks of the 1923 Kanto earthquake (Takemura, 2003). In November, the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun reported that during the trials, the defendants and the judges were both smiling and laughing as they recounted the lynchings. In a matter of days, the residents lived through an earthquake, more than a hundred fires, and a tsunami. [24] Beginning 2017, Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike broke decades of precedent by refusing to acknowledge the massacre or offer condolences to the descendants of survivors, saying that whether a massacre occurred is a matter of historical debate. [12][13]:167–8[14] Between 50 to 90 percent of the Korean population of Yokohama was killed. [18], On September 5, after the Prime Minister of Japan acknowledged that unlawful killings had occurred, Tokyo officials met secretly to discuss a way to deny and minimize the massacre. Koreans, Chinese, and Ryukyuans wore Japanese clothing in order to hide their identities. Even if you did, would your guarantees make Korean nightmares go away? In the 1923 Kanto earthquake, some M7 class aftershocks occurred immediately after the M7.9 main shock. 8 out of 15 districts in Tokyo were destroyed. [29] As of 2020, Katō continues to advocate on behalf of victims' families and fight against historical revisionism. Tokai Earthquake History . Japan’s government tallied cash donations from America as follows: 12.7 million yen contributed by natives and foreign residents and 2.8 million yen by resident Japanese nationals [dōhō or zairyÅ« hōjin]. The earthquake that hit Tohoku area on March 11 has already resulted in more deaths than the Kobe earthquake, and the property damage will also be larger. Differing Narratives about the Quake. As historian Michael Weiner has illustrated, such rumors spread as far as Hokkaidō, 800km from Tokyo. Laying out their plans in a memorandum, they agreed to minimize the number of dead, blame the rumors of Korean violence on the labor organizer Yamaguchi Seiken, and frameup innocent Koreans and accuse them of actually rioting. [6]:146 Nishizaka's final report on the massacre acknowledges in a secret appendix that these rumors were all false.[5]:115[7]:92. "[5]:104, According to multiple reports from Japanese witnesses, beginning on the night of September 2 police officers in Yokohama, Kanagawa and Tokyo began informing residents that it was permissible to kill Koreans. [9] Those who failed these tests were killed. Using figures published by the Japanese government, the total amount of cash contributed to Japan following the disaster amounted to roughly 22 million yen from which America provided 15.4 million yen (roughly 70 percent). The Tokai segment last ruptured in 1854, and before that in 1707. “In the course of three days …. 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