The Great Kanto Earthquake, September 1, 1923
Otis Manchester Poole, Manager of Dodwell & Co. Ltd. in Yokohama, recorded
the following impressions:
I had scarcely returned to my desk when, without warning, came the first
rumbling jar of an earthquake, a sickening sway, the vicious grinding of
timbers and, in a few seconds, a crescendo of turmoil as the floor began
to heave and the building to lurch drunkenly.... The ground could scarcely
be said to shake; it heaved, tossed and leapt under one. The walls bulged
as if made of cardboard and the din became awful...For perhaps half a minute
the fabric of our surroundings held; then came disintegration. Slabs of
plaster left the ceilings and fell about our ears, filling the air with
a blinding, smothering fog of dust. Walls bulged, spread and sagged, pictures
danced on their wires, flew out and crashed to splinters. ... How long it
lasted, I don't know. It seemed an eternity; but the official record says
four minutes...[9]
This quotation can be found among the excellent resources compiled by the
National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering whose pages are located
at:
See some other useful sites with photographs from the massive
earthquake at:
Tokyo Electric Co. burns in the Yurakacho area
Nakamise District
near Asakusa
Ueno area in Tokyo