Great Kanto Earthquake sparked another horrifying result, as well. In the hours and days following, nationalist and racist rhetoric took hold across Japan. Stunned survivors of the earthquake, tsunami, and firestorm looked for an explanation, looked for a scapegoat, and the target of their fury was the ethnic Koreans living in their midst. As early as mid-afternoon on September 1, the day of the quake, reports, and rumors started that the Koreans had set the disastrous fires, that they were poisoning wells and looting ruined homes, and that they were planning to overthrow the government.
Approximately 6,000 unlucky Koreans, as well as more than 700 Chinese who were mistaken for Koreans, were hacked and beaten to death with swords and bamboo rods. The police and military in many places stood by for three days, allowing vigilantes to carry out these murders, in what is now called the Korean Massacre.
In the end, the earthquake and its aftereffects killed well over 100,000 people. It also sparked both soul-searching and nationalism in Japan, just eight years before the nation took its first steps toward World War II, with the invasion and occupation of Manchuria.
Source:Kallie Szczepanski
Source:Kallie Szczepanski
