A .••g .•••t 28, 1918

World's Worst Earthquake-15 ·Years AgoHow 38,000 of Its 100,000Victims Died in Flames

By KIMPEl SHEBA(ChIcqo Tribune Pre•• ServIce.)

Tokio. canals, and moats. Many of the. FIFTEEN years ago on next fires merged and in a few hours

Thursday, Sept. 1, 1923, the were completely out of control.most disastrous earthquake All.means Qf communication

in history rocked the region bor- had been disrupted. Telephonedering on Tokio bay. More than and telegraph lines were dislo-100,000 persons were kilied and cated. As the convulsions contln-700,000houses destroyed, leaving ued, electricity failed and tram2,000,000 homeless. and railway services stopped.Half of Tokio and practically The populace of the whole city

the whole of Yokohama, the Iead- was running wildly in every dl-ing commercial port, were reo rection in an effort to .reach safe-duced to ashes. The Japanese ty. The stampede increased incapital burned for three days fury when channels of escapeand two nights. were cut by new blazes. As theAfter· shocks continued for afternoon wore on the confusion

three years as the dislocated geo- grew into fearful pandemonium.logical s t rat a slowly settled. From time immemorial theOne of these, on Sept. 2, 1923, Japanese have been taught thatand another on Jan. 15, 1924, the safest place during an earth-were more severe than the San quake is a bamboo grove, andFrancisco quake. In all therewere more than 1,600 after-shocks-900 in the first five days.Dawn broke in Tokio on the

day of the quake hot, moist, andstill. The humidity was exces-sive. There. had been a slightrainfall after midnight, and thesky was overcast.The early part of September

in Tokio is still as hot as mid-summer. Although the normaltemperature at noon is about 85degrees, it is often made unbear-able by the humidity. Many ofthe American and other foreignresidents were still at the sum-mer resorts in the mountainssixty miles away.At 7:30 a. m. started the exo-

dus of hundreds of thousands ofworkers from homes in the sub-urbs and the residential sectionsto the business and industrialcenters. The sky cleared as them 0 r n i n g advanced and thescorching sun beat down. Elec-tric trains, tram cars, and buseswere crowded and stuffy and al-most every one opened fans andcomplained of the heat.

H It seems as if there might bean earthquake," many an Inhab-ita n t . grumbled. Natives ofTokio know fro m experiencethat sizable earthquakes usuallyoccur on sultry days.About 11 a. m, thousands of

housewives began making firesin tiny charcoal stoves and light-ed gas burners with which toprepare the midday meal.At 11:30 a. m. boys and girls

employed in offices, shops, andfactories lit gas burners to pre-pare tea for lunch time. By11:45 o'clock practically all thecooking stoves and gas burnersin Tokio were burning.

•••At two minutes before noon

there was a subterranean rum-bling from the southeast whichin an Instant became a terrify-ing roar. Then the earth shookwith a jolt that knocked peopleoff their feet and overturned fur-niture and stoves.Buildings roc ked violently.

Walls trembled and collapsed.Ceilings groaned. People couldwalk only with difficulty.There were shouts of "Rush

outdoors!" but this admonitionwas unnecessary, for that wasexactly what everybody was try-ing to do as they stumbled forthe nearest exits like drunkenpersons. Many elderly peoplehad to crawl.Outside a terrible sight met

their eyes. Telephone and tele-graph poles were swaying oralready had fallen. Trees wereuprooted; the injured lay groan-ing; the screams of women andchildren could be heard.The back· and - forth and up-

and·down movement-thequakes were both horizontal andvertical- continued for twelveseconds. One aft e r anotherhouses of wood and paper erum-pled amidst clouds of dust, bury-ing the shrieking occupants.Fires broke out all over the cityand outlying districts.Sixty seconds after the first

shock columns of black smokewere rising fro m the crownprince's former palace, the TokioImperial university, and severalother places where chemical ex-plosions occurred. In a few mln-utes fires started in a score ofother locations, and by nightfallthere were 134 blazes.Ten minutes after the flrst

temblor most of the water mainsgave way and the flre fightershad to draw water from wells,

Tokio crowd_ watching the progr ••• of the fir. in a residential section theday of the quake.

next to tnat a large open space.The former is regarded securebecause of the peculiarly strongramiflcations of the roots of theplants, which keep the groundfrom cracking. The advantageof open spaces, 'particularly incrowded cities, is apparent.By the tens of thousands peo-

ple made their way into the vastopen area in front of the Impe-rial palace, in the heart of thecity, and into the four largeparks at Hibiya, Ueno, Shiba,and Asakusa.In H 0 n j 0 and Fukagawa

wards, the most densely populat-ed districts in Tokio, there areno parks, but fortunately thegigantic army clothing depothad only recently been movedand all buildings had been torndown. The cleared ground wasdestined to become a park. Herewas a level open space of twentyacres with not a house, tree, orshrub on it.Fires started in Honjo almost

immediately after the first vio-lent quake, and as people rushedout of their homes in search ofplaces of safety, many naturally

How toBy CAPT. M. M. CORPENINGFormerly Rldlnc In.tructor, U. S.Military Academy at We.t Point.

HIGH, treacherous. orshow jumping should beundertaken only by ex-perienced riders. The rider isfar forward, out of the saddle.The seat is less secure than inhunting or ordinary jumping,but the weight is so shifted asto enable the horse to take thedifficult hurdles with less inter-ference. Note how body is bal-anced on the knees, with nojerk at all on reins. Stirrupsshould be shortened w henjumps are above three feet six-the higher the jump theshorter the stirrup. This proc-ess produces difficulty for theinexperienced in keeping bodyIn proper position as shown inthe picture. Roughly speaking,the body's center of gravityshould be approximately in avertical plane passing just inthe rear of the knee joints.Following are common faultsfound in unskilled riders whenstirrups are shortened:1. The knees are too high

and pushed too far to the front.As a result the buttocks slidetoo far forward. In some verybad cases the knees rest at thefront ends of the saddle skirtsor beyond them.2. The heels are high, result-

ing from the faulty positionsof the buttocks and knees.3. The stirrup lethers are not

.perpendicular.4. The loin and back are

humped.

made their way to this ground.Refugees who had hand carts

took along as much of their be-longings as possible. Otherscarried their valuables wrappedin sheets and blankets.By 2 p. rn. the clothing depot

was a congestion of humans andhand carts piled high with cot-ton- stuffed bedding, kimonos,cooking utensils, and food.

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Fires to the southwest. spread-ing rapidly in the direction ofthe compound, drove many morecitizens to seek safety there. By3 p. m. 35,000 terri fled refugeespacked the open space. Therewas hardly room to move, forthe ground was cluttered withbundles of every description, yetmore thousands, driven by newflames to the east and terrifiedby the now almost constantshaking of the earth, pressedinto the grounds.By 4 p. m, the flames from the

south had approached danger-ously close to the safety area.The blaze to the east mergedwith smaller flres which had.

Ride

The _cene that greeted vi_itom to a northea_tem _ection of Tokio following the earthquake and fire of 1923. The_tatu. in the foreground I_ a naval memorial. (Pbotoe from KImpelSheba.)

started to the north, and theflames leaped hundreds of feetinto the air.As nightfall approached, the

fire from the south, uncheckedand uncontroled, and that to the

Earthquake memorial temple erect·ed on the _quare where 39.000 refu-gee. were killed by fire. Picturetaken d uri n g annual memorial

service.

northeast merged into one vastsea of flames.The wind, accelerated by the

vacuum caused by the flameswhich burned around a voidspace, increased in velocity. Itscourse shifted momentarily, nowblowing strongest fro m thesouth, now from the west, and

then from the north and east.The cordon of flre bore downupon the oasis of refuge fromall sides.Thtrty- eight thousand men,

women, and children stood help-less. The heat became unbear-able. The whole area was liter-ally becoming an immense incin-erator. Frantic cries for helpand frenzied prayers came fromthe refugees.

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the oxygen in the air, leavingonly' poisonous fumes, thousandssuffocated.The cyclone of fire swirled and

twisted and roared, and theearth below t rem b led andcracked, and by midnight all buta few score of the 38,000personsin that twenty-acre inferno weredead.The other day, after being as-

signed by The Chicago Tribuneto write the story of this holo-caust, I visited the earthquakememorial temple built on thesite where the 38,000 refugeesperished; Yutaro Shindo, anelderly uniformed official whowas a police officer in Honjo in1923, told me of the condition

immediately after the disaster."Were you in Honjo ward at

that time?" I inquired.Mr. Shindo locked surprised.

"Every inch of land in Honjoand FUkagawa wards wasburned." he said. " If I had beenin Honjo ward that day I wouldnot be here now.""I was one of the first .to

reach the depot," he. went on.u It was the morning of Sept. 3,and the flre had burned itselfout, although the whole areawas still smoldering."At first I could hardly be-

lieve my eyes. There were noth-ing but bodies for as far as Icould see. On closer examlna-tion I was amazed to flnd theclothing of many of the deadalmost untouched by fire. Thebodies were not in one solidmass, but lay in waves. some-times as many as flve deep. Thenthere would be a few feet ofopen space and then anotherwave of bodies."Perhaps the victims rushed

in one direction as the tonguesof flame swept upon them andfell one on the other. I am con-vinced a fourth of the victimsdied from suffocation. The fewwho escaped dug themselvesunder the masses of bodies andremained until the fire burneditself out."Mr. Shindo was assigned to

supervise the disposal of thebodies. "It took us two weeksto cremate the 38,000bodies. Wecounted the dead as we burnedthem," he added. "Tears 'cameto our eyes as we saw how moth-ers and fathers sacrifled them-selves in a vain effort to savetheir children."The holocaust at Honjo is in

many ways without precedentin history. It probably was thefirst time there ever was a cy-clone of fire. Never have so manypersons been burned alive to-gether within the confines of so .small an area.Yet it was only a small part

of the great calamity which vis-ited Japan that day.

Fire had now reached thebuildings immediately aroundthe depot, and the high columnsof flame gyrated, leaving a voidin the center directly over thevacant lot. The gyrations be-came a violent encircling move- r--------------------------ment of the air which gainedmomentum until it reached cy-clonic proportions.Fanned by this furious whirl-

wind, the roaring pillars of flretwisted around and around thetwenty - acre compound, sweep-ing down at times and blowingwhite-hot iron roofing and burn-ing embers upon the screamingmultitude.The vas t accumulation of

goods on the ground, much of itinflammable, beg a n to burn.Men and women lay on the earthwith their young beneath themto protect them from the intenseheat. Being roasted alive, manyof the refugees became ravingmaniacs. As the flre consumed

No. 7a Horse-Lesson

All these faults make theseat weak and insecure. Theyresult from failure to keep theheels driven far down, the

calves close against the horse,the knees held in against thesaddle skirts, the back and loinmuscles contracted SUfficiently

to keep the back straight andthe loin concave. Anyone ofthe faults entails the others.

(THE END.)

THE-GIRL NOBODYWANTED TO KNOW[~iH,7Jt8 S'1mtJH6t~He)WHO 15 THAT?

\ YOU WOULDN'T WANT TOKNOW HER. NOBODY DOES

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

\ I MEAN SHE HAS "B.a."THAT'S WHY THE FELLOWSALL AVOID HER~/ f( ..:;::

WHY NOT. SHE LOOKS CUTE TO ME

I

, HEARD ONE OFMY BEST FRIENDSBEl NG TALKEDABOUT. I NEVERTAKE CHANCES!

,ay' WILLIS G. JOHNSONMinneapoli. bu.iness man

"I never take chances with my personalneatness. That'~ why 1swear by Lifebuoy."Thanks to Its exclusive purifying in-

gredienr, lifebUOy in

lourdaily bath givesastin¥, freshness-stops' B.O." .And itftOtects you fromB. 0:' even in hotweather.