E A R T H Q U A K E !

The Great Kanto Earthquake

At ten minutes to noon that first day of September, 1923 it is an entirely routine workday in Tokyo and its port city Yokohama. Housewives are busy preparing lunch for their children and spouses over charcoal braziers. Office workers downtown are wrapping up their morning tasks before lunch.

For my family too, it is just another day. My grandfather, Sydney Bruce, is an accountant for an import-export firm. The family has come out from England to join Sydney for an extended stay. Sydney’s wife Rose Mary returned to England two months ago while three of the adult children — Vi, Maurice and Frank — stay on to work. It is a good life, a far better life than they could afford  back home. Two zero three Bluff Road is a mansion of a place perched on a bluff overlooking Yokohama. Four Japanese servants — a cook, gardener, housemaid and chauffeur — take care of the mundane. The country club and the Masonic Lodge provide the rest. Free time is spent with mostly English friends within the large expatriate community. There is never a shortage of things to do — betting at the track, playing tennis, swimming, hiking and attending the occasional dance. Yes, it is a good life.

At this particular moment, minutes before noon on September 1, 1923 the Bruce family is scattered across Tokyo and Yokohama. Sydney is on a train with son Frank, returning home to Yokohama from business in Tokyo. It is perhaps a half hour trip. Daughter Vi waits for them at the train station in Yokohama. Unusual for her, she has taken a day off from her office job downtown. And Maurice is at the docks. He too has taken the morning off to wave goodbye to a friend sailing on the Empress of Australia.

Image: An artist’s rendition of a scene from the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1 September, 1923. Animals, crazed by the earthquake and resulting firestorm, killed and injured many people.

A Letter Home

At two minutes to noon, it hits with a ferocity beyond imagining. Earthquake! Sydney Bruce, an accountant working in Yokohama, writes this letter to his wife Rose Mary in England one month after a devastating earthquake struck Yokohama and Tokyo.

46 Hariura Machi
Kobe
1 Oct 1923

Darling,
Just had your letter dated the 23rd August, and a gentle reminder that I owe you more than one. Have tried to write you once or twice but each time had to give it up – theearthquake seems to have knocked all the stuffing out of me. What a bit of luck you left here in July!! Not only prevented you from a bad shock to the nerves (although I expect you had a bad time waiting for news of us) but you saved all your belongings, which nobody else in Yokohama did.

The whole city and Bluff are as flat as a pancake. Dreadful sight, and it is a wonder that so many of us are alive to tell the tale. Unfortunately, about 300 foreigners lost their lives, quite a number among them are our friends – poor old Watson and Patterson, Tait,Tom Abbey, Dr Reidhoad, Dr Wheeler, Dr. Ishiura, all gone.

I was on the train at the time, close to Omori Station, with Frank, Chapman and Catto, travelling at about 40 miles an hour, and I have often wondered since how we kept onthe rails. The train pulled up eventually when we realized what happened, but we had no idea of the extent of the damage in Yokohama, and the awful catastrophe which hadtaken over the town.

We walked from Omori along the line to Kawasaki. The big bridge had sunk four feet in the middle, and some of the bridge supports were right out of place. All this time continuous shocks which nearly threw us off our feet, during one of which we were passing a heavy freight train, and to see the engine being shaken as if it were a toy wasa bit scary to say the least.

From Kawasaki we took to the road. I think now this was a mistake. Nearly all thehouses were down, or partly so. And close to Tsuriumi we had to run through the fire. Of course, it was already over, but still too hot to be comfortable. We eventually got back to the railway again and from then on I decided to give the fires a wide berth, and as we could not get further than Kanagawa on this account, we made for the Tokkaido in the hope of eventually getting round the burning district and reaching the Bluff via Nakamura. But we were too tired, and at 12 oʼclock at night found ourselves at the end of the tram line beyond Nibombashi where we camped for the night in a field, being provided with a couple of tatami by a Japanese whose house had collapsed, but hadescaped the fire.

At daybreak we started off again through the burnt district, a sight I shall never forget. Great holes in the road, train rails twisted into all sorts of shapes, telephone andtelegraph wires blocking our path at almost every step. Bridges blazing away – we had to cross one which was still burning.  And tram cars, carts, and motor cars just burnt where they stood from the time of the earthquake. Needless to say I had a very anxious time, as I was not sure Vi and Maurice were alright. Fortunately, I knew where they ought to have been at the time of the earthquake, but of course could not be sure. Vi, at Yokohama Station in the car to meet me and Maurice, seeing some friends off on the Empress of Australia. Comparatively safe places, although the pier where Maurice wasalmost disappeared entirely into the harbour.

To add to our troubles it was intensely hot, and from 8 oʼclock on we got very little to drink. However, we got out safely for which we have to be very thankful, and while our losses are considerable – furniture, clothes and some stock in The Canadian Trading Company – I am hoping I can recover my bonds (which were also burnt at the Chartered Bank) as I happened to have the numbers of them in my safe at the Tokyooffice which was intact.

On arrival at the Bluff, at about 6 am, I was fortunate enough to have news of Maurice and soon after was told that Vi was alright – Maurice on the Empress and Vi at the Grimesseyʼs compound at Nagishi. So I sent word to her by young Geoffrey Fearon, who just then came along, to tell her to come to the Bund(?) at once, and meanwhile Frank, Levack and another young fellow named Heller and myself assisted in getting old Captain Carst (who is unable to walk) down to the boat. Some funeral procession, I can tell you (we were all dead tired and nothing to eat for 24 hours), having to climb over fences and heaps of debris blocking the roadway, and wires everywhere.

I had previously been to have a look at the house – absolutely not a trace of anything and about 12 to 15 feet of the bank had gone too. The one thing remaining was the garage which had collapsed.

Iʼve been to Yokohama twice since, once to the memorial service on the 23rd September, and again a few days later but am not anxious to go again as it has a very depressing effect on everybody who visits it.  Am enclosing a few photographs to give you an idea of what it looks like now….

Well, no more now. [Itʼs] nearly 11 oʼclock and I am tired. Weʼre dossing in a godown [temporarily staying at a warehouse] at present!! and Vi at the Libeaudʼs quite comfy and all well.

Lots of love and heaps of kisses from your devoted

Hubby

Afterword

The Great Kanto Earthquake was the deadliest in Japanese history. All members of the Bruce family miraculously survived. But about 140,000 people were reported dead or missing. Varied accounts hold that the duration of the earthquake was a mere 4 to 10 minutes.

The earthquake devastated Tokyo and the port city of Yokohama and caused widespread damage throughout the region. The power of the earthquake was so great that in Kamakura, over 60 kilometres from the epicenter, it moved a Great Buddha statue weighing 84,000 kg almost two feet.

Many people were cooking meals over charcoal braziers when the earthquake struck. Enormous fires broke out; some developed into firestorms that swept across the two cities. Many people died when their feet became stuck in melting tarmac. The single greatest loss of life was caused by a firestorm-induced fire whirl that engulfed open space at the Rikugun Honjo Hifukusho (formerly the Army Clothing Depot) in downtown Tokyo. There, about 38,000 people were incinerated after taking shelter in the facility following the earthquake. The earthquake broke water mains all over the city. Putting out the fires took nearly two full days. Fire was the biggest cause of death.

As if the earthquake and fire were not enough, a powerful  typhoon struck Tokyo Bay at about the same time, exacerbating the fires. Some scientists suggested that the a decrease of atmospheric pressure caused by the typhoon coupled with a sudden increase of sea pressure by a storm surge on an already-stressed earthquake fault may have triggered the earthquake.

^Many homes were buried or swept away by landslides in the mountainous and hilly coastal areas in western Kanagawa Prefecture, killing about 800 people. A collapsing mountainside in the village of Nebukawa, west of Odawara, pushed the entire village and a passenger train carrying over 100 passengers along with the railway station into the sea.

A tsunami with waves up to 10 metres (33 ft) high struck the coast of Sagami Bay, Boso Peninsula, Izu Islands and the east coast of Izu Peninsula within minutes. The tsunami killed many, including about 100 people along Yui-ga-hama beach in Kamakura and an estimated 50 people on the Enoshima causeway. Over 570,000 homes were destroyed, leaving an estimated 1.9 million homeless. Evacuees were transported by ship from Kanto to as far as Kobe in Kansai. The damage is estimated to have exceeded USD$13.6 trillion in today’s dollars.

Source: Wikipedia