There are places on Earth where earthquakes happen all the time. In Japan, every hundred years there are especially large earthquakes, during which hundreds of thousands of people die, therefore it is often called the "land of earthquakes." The ancient Japanese believe that the culprit of earthquakes is a huge catfish (namazu), which lives underground and sometimes bangs its body against it. The behavior of the namazu is watched by a kind deity (daimedzin) with a large stone mallet in his hands. If the catfish were not under the supervision of this good god, the earth would shake constantly. But when the daimazin is distracted from his duties, the namazu begins to stir and the earth shudders.
In the area of the Japanese Islands, the activity of the earth's interior is so great that, on average, about one and a half thousand very noticeable tremors occur here a year. The strongest of them mainly arise in two giant fractures of the earth's crust - Suruga and Sagami. And weak tremors (for example, in the city of Niigata) are felt so often that they have not caused much concern among residents for a long time. First, advertising signs begin to rattle, then houses begin to sway before our eyes, and something can fall from the rooftops. Clouds of dust are rising. In 1964, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck Niigata. The liquefaction of the underlying soil led to a slow slope and subsidence of residential buildings. But by this year, the structure of the buildings was already so strong that not a single crack appeared in their walls. When the shock occurred, one woman was on the roof of her house,where I hung up the laundry after washing. A few minutes later, the roof of her house dropped to the ground, and she safely jumped off it.
Strong earthquakes are felt only in open areas. First, small cracks form in the ground, then they become wider, the soil cracks, as if plowed by a plow. During the strongest earthquakes, undulating vibrations of the earth's surface are observed.
The sight of waves on the earth's surface can seem fantastic, although waves of this kind occur with every earthquake. But only during strong earthquakes are they visible to the naked eye, as was the case, for example, during the earthquake of 1923.
The twenties and thirties of the XX century generally left a sad memory of themselves in Japan. On September 1, 1923, a 12-point earthquake engulfed the Southern Kanto region (including Tokyo and Yokohama). These were the economic, political and cultural centers of Japan. The epicenter of the earthquake, named after the province of Kanto, the most affected by the seismic shock, was located eighty kilometers south-west of Tokyo - near Oshima Island in Sagami Bay.
Western scientists call this earthquake the Tokyo (or Yokohama) earthquake, but the Japanese themselves call it the "Great Kanto earthquake", after the name of the area where after it was the most destructive. The epicenter of the earthquake was under Sagami Bay. Nearly half of the houses in the towns along its coast were destroyed. The damage was greatest in those parts of the cities that were built on loose alluvium. The blow literally in a few seconds completely and partially destroyed more than 254 thousand houses. The rest was completed by the outbreak of fires, light houses made of wood, plywood and paper were destroyed by fire in a matter of hours. Buildings built on stone foundations suffered less damage.
The most powerful underground (or rather, sub-flood) shock changed the depth of the bay, which in turn caused 12-meter waves. Many small towns along the bay were destroyed by these giant tsunamis.
For Japan, this was probably one of the most destructive earthquakes. Of the great many in general all Japanese earthquakes, this time it befell the most densely populated areas. In Tokyo and Yokohama, real terror reigned. Six thousand people died in the Japanese capital, and the resulting fire destroyed almost the entire city.
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The main port of Japan, the city of Yokohama, is located on the shores of Tokyo Bay, about 65 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake. Eyewitnesses later said: “At first there was an underground roar, then almost immediately the tremors that followed each other began. In the city, one fifth of all buildings collapsed in an instant. The earthquake happened at noon, when most of the houses were preparing for dinner. Fires broke out in many places almost immediately. True, at first they were small, local, but then they spread, and it was difficult to cope with them, since all the fire-fighting equipment was destroyed by the earthquake."
Indeed, a strong wind carried the fire in different directions. Individual fires connected with each other, and soon it was already blazing from all sides. Unimaginable horror led to people and the fire that blazed in the harbor of Yokohama from gasoline spilled on the water. The pillars of the flame of this fire reached a height of 60 meters.
The Yokohama authorities were initially unaware of the magnitude of the earthquake and thought that only their city was affected by the natural disaster. They sent couriers to the capital, asking for help, but there the couriers saw a terrifying picture.
Tokyo was 90 kilometers from the epicenter, and the earthquake itself did less damage, but the fires brought more disaster. They arose simultaneously in different parts of the city. It was especially difficult to get into the streets, which were so narrow that fire engines could not enter. Although the fire-fighting equipment survived, all the waterways of the capital were destroyed. Thus, a fire carried by a strong wind destroyed almost half of the city.
Fleeing the fire, people fled to parks and less damaged parts of the city. At one of the squares (Military-Closing-Depot), more than 40,000 people gathered at the same time. Buildings that suddenly flared up killed all people in one moment: they suffocated in the hot air.
A violent underground storm, devastating Tokyo and Yokohama, left 3.5 million people homeless and claimed 150,000 lives. The material losses incurred by the country were five times higher than its expenses in the Russo-Japanese War.
Almost completely destroyed by tremors and fires, Tokyo was then devastated again by American air raids during World War II. Now the city has a quarter of residential buildings built before 1945. Its historical monuments are only a reproduction of the form of structures that have been repeatedly destroyed.
The Russian writer B. Pilnyak, who visited Japan at the end of the 1920s, wrote: “All Japanese everyday life rests on earthquakes. These earthquakes freed the Japanese people from dependence before the thing and removed the thing: the psychology of the people threw it out of its everyday life … Japanese material culture was transformed into the will and organized nerves of the Japanese people."
It may have been the constant risk of annihilation that shaped the Japanese national character. The Japanese are humble, patient and persistent. They are able to endure disasters that are difficult for many peoples to imagine. The Japanese people have achieved unprecedented success in difficult natural conditions, constantly threatening earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev