Prior to the Tohoku-Kanto earthquake and tsunami of March 11, two similar seismic events — both followed by tsunami — have recently wrought destruction on the northeastern coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. This week and next, we dig into the archives of The Japan Times and a forerunner later absorbed by the JT, The Japan Weekly Mail, to present original reports on two tragedies that bear a striking similarity to those of the past month. This week's reports, both from The Japan Weekly Mail, concern what is now known as the Meiji Sanriku earthquake. That magnitude 8.2 temblor occurred on June 15, 1896, and was centered roughly 200 km east of present-day Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture (about 150 km northeast of the epicenter of the March 11 quake). It is now estimated that almost 22,000 lives were lost, mostly as a result of the tsunami that followed.
115 YEARS AGO
Saturday, June 20, 1896
It will be some time before full particularities reach Tokyo of the cruel disaster that has overtaken the people living along the coast of Rikuzen and Rikuchu (present-day Iwate and northern Miyagi prefectures).