Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake of 1923

Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake of 1923, earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 that struck the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area near noon on September 1, 1923. The death toll from the temblor was estimated to have exceeded 140,000. More than half of the brick buildings and one-tenth of the reinforced concrete structures in the region collapsed. Many hundreds of thousands of houses were either shaken down or burned in the ensuing fire touched off by the quake. The shock generated a tsunami that reached a height of 39.5 feet (12 metres) at Atami on Sagami Gulf, where it destroyed 155 houses and killed 60 people. The only comparable Japanese earthquake in the 20th century was at Kōbe on January 17, 1995; about 6,400 people died amid considerable damage, which included widespread fires in the city and a landslide in nearby Nishinomiya. A massive magnitude-9.0 temblor struck off the coast of Sendai on March 11, 2011, itself producing some damage but also generating a series of devastating tsunamis along the coast of northeastern Japan.