The Kantō Massacre was a mass murder in the Kantō region of Japan committed in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. With the explicit and implicit approval of parts of the Japanese government, the Japanese military, police, and vigilantes murdered an estimated 6,000 people: mainly ethnic Koreans, but also Chinese and Japanese people mistaken to be Korean, and Japanese communists, socialists, and anarchists.
Koreans in Japan about to be stabbed by Japanese vigilantes with bamboo spears immediately after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.
September 15: Prince Regent hearing reports at Ueno Park from Home Minister Viscount Shinpei Goto and Superintendent of political affairs of Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (警視庁, Keishichō) Yuasa Kurahei − during his inspection tour over the devastated Capital.
1923 Great Kantō earthquake
The Great Kantō earthquake also known in Japanese as Kantō daishinsai (関東大震災) struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:32 JST on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Extensive firestorms and even a fire whirl added to the death toll.
The ruined Ryōunkaku in Asakusa, which was later demolished
Desolation of Nihonbashi and Kanda seen from the roof of Dai-ichi Sogo building
Marunouchi in flames
Ethnic Koreans were massacred after the earthquake.
