JAPAN AND ITS DISASTROUS EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
=The Island Empire Subject to Convulsions of Nature--Legends
of Ancient Disturbances--Famous Volcano of Fuji-yama Formed
in One Night--More Than One Hundred Volcanoes in Japan--Two
Hundred and Thirty-two Eruptions Recorded--Devastation of
Thriving Towns and Busy Cities--The Capital a Sufferer--Scenes
of Desolation after the Most Recent Great Earthquakes.=
Japan may be considered the home of the volcano and the earthquake.
Few months pass there without one or more earth shocks of considerable
force, besides numerous lighter ones of too slight a nature to be
worthy of remark. Japanese histories furnish many records of these
phenomena.
There is an ancient legend of a great earthquake in 286 B.C., when
Mount Fuji rose from the bottom of the sea in a single night. This is
the highest and most famous mountain of the country. It rises more
than 12,000 feet above the water level, and is in shape like a cone;
the crater is 500 feet deep. It is regarded by the natives as a sacred
mountain, and large numbers of pilgrims make the ascent to the summit
at the commencement of the summer. The apex is shaped somewhat like an
eight-petaled lotus flower, and offers from three to five peaks to
view from different directions. Though now apparently extinct, it was
in former times an active volcano, and the histories of the country
mention several very disastrous eruptions. Japanese poets never weary
in celebrating the praises of Fuji-san, or Fuji-yama, as it is
variously called, and its conical form is one of the most familiar in
Japanese painting and decorative art.
As Japan has not yet been scientifically explored throughout, and,
moreover, as there is considerable difficulty in defining the kind of
mountain to be regarded as a volcano, it is impossible to give an
absolute statement as to the number of volcanoes in the country. If
under the term volcano be included all mountains which have been in a
state of eruption within the historical period, those which have a
true volcanic form, together with those that still exhibit on their
flanks matter ejected from a crater, we may conclude that there are at
least 100 such mountains in the Japanese empire. Of this number about
forty-eight are still active.
Altogether about 232 eruptions have been recorded, and of these the
greater number took place in the southern districts. This may perhaps
be accounted for by the fact that Japanese civilization advanced from
the south. In consequence of this, records were made of various
phenomena in the south when the northern regions were still unknown
and unexplored.
The most famous of the active volcanoes is Asama-yama in Shinano. The
earliest eruption of this mountain of which record now exists seems to
have been in 1650. After that it was only feebly active for 133 years,
when there occurred a very severe eruption in 1783. Even as late as
1870 there was a considerable emission of volcanic matter, at which
time also violent shocks of earthquake were felt at Yokohama. The
crater is very deep, with irregular rocky walls of a sulphur
character, from apertures in which fumes are constantly sent forth.
Probably the earliest authentic instance of an earthquake in Japan is
that which is said to have occurred in 416 A.D., when the imperial
palace at Kioto was thrown to the ground. Again, in 599, the buildings
throughout the province of Yamato were all destroyed, and special
prayers were ordered to be offered up to the deity of earthquakes. In
679 a tremendous shock caused many fissures to open in the provinces
of Chikuzen and Chikugo, in Kiushiu; the largest of these chasms was
over four miles in length and about twenty feet in width. In 829 the
northern province of Dewa was visited in a similar manner; the castle
of Akita was overthrown, deep rifts were formed in the ground in every
direction, and the Akita river was dried up.
To descend to more recent instances, in 1702 the lofty walls of the
outside and inside moats of the castle of Yeddo were destroyed, tidal
waves broke along the coast in the vicinity, and the road leading
through the famous pass of Hakone, in the hills to the east of
Fuji-yama was closed up by the alteration in the surface of the earth.
A period of unusual activity was between the years 1780 and 1800, a
time when there was great activity elsewhere on the globe. It was
during this period that Mount Unsen was blown up, and from 27,000 to
53,000 persons (according to different accounts) perished; that many
islands were formed in the Satsuma sea; that Sakura-jima threw out so
much pumice material that it was possible to walk a distance of
twenty-three miles upon the floating debris in the sea; and that Asama
ejected so many blocks of stone--one of which is said to have been
forty-two feet in diameter--and a lava-stream sixty-eight kilometres
in length.
In 1854 an earthquake destroyed the town of Shimoda, in the province
of Idzu, and a Russian frigate, lying in the harbor at the time, was
so severely damaged by the waves caused by the shock that she had to
be abandoned. In 1855 came a great earthquake which was felt most
severely at Yedo, though its destructive power extended for some
distance to the west along the line of the Tokaido. It is stated that
on this occasion there were in all 14,241 dwelling houses and 1,649
fire proof store houses overturned in the city, and a destructive fire
which raged at the same time further increased the loss of life and
property.
What was possibly the gravest disaster of its class in this land of
volcanoes, since the terrible eruptions which came in the twenty years
ending in 1800, occurred in the Bandai-san region in northern Japan,
on July 15, 1888. At about eight o'clock in the morning of that day,
almost in the twinkling of an eye, Little Bandai-san was blown into
the air, and wiped out of the map of Japan. A few moments later its
debris had buried or devastated the surrounding country for miles, and
a dozen or more of upland hamlets had been overwhelmed in the earthen
deluge, or wrecked by other phenomena attending the outburst. Several
hundreds of people had met with sudden and terrible death; scores of
others had been injured; and the long roll of disaster included the
destruction of horses and cattle, damming up of rivers, and laying
waste of large tracts of rice-land and mulberry groves.
A small party was organized in Tokio to visit the scene. As the
travelers approached the mountain, they were told that twenty miles in
a straight line from Bandai-san no noise or earthquake was experienced
on the 15th, but mist and gloom prevailed for about seven hours, the
result of a shower of impalpable blue-gray ash, which fell to a depth
of half an inch, and greatly puzzled the inhabitants. An ascent of
about 3,000 feet was made to the back of the newly formed crater, so
as to obtain a clear view of it and of the country which had been
overwhelmed. Only on nearing the end of the ascent was the party again
brought face to face with signs of the explosion. Here, besides the
rain of fine, gray, ashen mud which had fallen on and still covered
the ground and all vegetation, they came upon a number of freshly
opened pits, evidently in some way the work of the volcano. Ascending
the last steep rise to the ridge behind Little Bandai-san, signs of
the great disaster grew in number and intensity.
The London Times correspondent, who was one of the party, wrote:
"Fetid vapors swept over us, emanating from evil looking pools. Great
trees, torn up by their roots, lay all around; and the whole face of
the mountain wore the look of having been withered by some fierce and
baleful blast. A few minutes further and we had gained the crest of
the narrow ridge, and now, for the first time, looked forth upon the
sight we had come to see. I hardly know which to pronounce the more
astonishing, the prospect that now opened before our eyes or the
suddenness with which it burst upon us. To the former no more fitting
phrase, perhaps, can be applied than that of absolute, unredeemed
desolation--so intense, so sad, and so bewildering that I despair of
describing it adequately in detail.
"On our right, a little above us, rose the in-curved rear wall of
what, eight days before, had been Sho-Bandai-san, a ragged, almost
sheer cliff, falling, with scarce a break, to a depth of fully 600
feet. In front of the cliff everything had been blown away and
scattered over the face of the country before it, in a roughly
fan-shaped deposit of for the most part unknown depth--deep enough,
however, to erase every landmark, and conceal every feature of the
deluged area. At the foot of the cliff, clouds of suffocating steam
rose ceaselessly and angrily, and with loud roaring, from two great
fissures in the crater bed, and now and then assailed us with their
hellish odor. To our eyes, the base, denuded by the explosion, seemed
to cover a space of between three and four square miles. This,
however, can only be rough conjecture. Equally vague must be all
present attempts to determine the volume of the disrupted matter. Yet,
if we assume, as a very moderate calculation, that the mean depth of
the debris covering a buried area of thirty square miles is not less
than fifteen feet, we find that the work achieved by this great mine
of Nature's firing was the upheaval and wide distribution of no fewer
than 700,000,000 tons of earth, rocks, and other ponderous material.
The real figure is probably very much greater."
The desolation beyond the crater, and the mighty mass thrown out by
the volcano which covered the earth, were almost incredible. "Down the
slopes of Bandai-san, across the valley of the Nagase-gawa, choking up
the river, and stretching beyond it to the foothills, five or six
miles away, swept a vast, billowy sheet of ash-covered earth or mud,
obliterating every foot of the erstwhile smiling landscape. Here and
there the eyes rested on huge, disordered heaps of rocky debris, in
the distance resembling nothing so much as the giant, concrete, black
substructure of some modern breakwater. It was curious to see on the
farther side the sharp line of demarkation between the brown sea of
mud and the green forests on which it had encroached; or, again, the
lakes formed in every tributary glen of the Nagase-gawa by the massive
dams so suddenly raised against the passage of their stream waters.
One lake was conspicuous among the rest. It was there that the
Nagase-gawa itself had been arrested at its issue from a narrow pass
by a monster barrier of disrupted matter thrown right across its
course. Neither living thing nor any sign of life could be discerned
over the whole expanse. All was dismally silent and solitary. Beneath
it, however, lay half a score of hamlets, and hundreds of corpses of
men, women and children, who had been overtaken by swift and painful
deaths."
Although the little village of Nagasaka was comparatively uninjured,
nearly all its able-bodied inhabitants lost their lives in a manner
which shows the extraordinary speed with which the mud-stream flowed.
When Little Bandai-san blew up, and hot ashes and sand began to fall,
the young and strong fled panic-stricken across the fields, making for
the opposite hills by paths well known to all. A minute later came a
thick darkness, as of midnight. Blinded by this, and dazed by the
falling debris and other horrors of the scene, their steps, probably
also their senses, failed them. And before the light returned every
soul was caught by a swift bore of soft mud, which, rushing down the
valley bed, overwhelmed them in a fate more horrible and not less
sudden than that of Pharaoh and his host. None escaped save those who
stayed at home--mostly the old and very young.
A terrible earthquake convulsed central Japan on the morning of
October 25, 1891. The waves of disturbance traversed thirty-one
provinces, over which the earth's crust was violently shaken for ten
minutes together, while slighter shocks were felt for a distance of
400 miles to the north, and traveled under the sea a like distance,
making themselves felt in a neighboring island. In Tokio itself,
though 170 miles from the center of disturbance, it produced an
earthquake greater than any felt for nearly forty years, lasting
twelve minutes. Owing, however, to the character of the movement,
which was a comparatively slow oscillation, the damage was confined to
the wrecking of some roofs and chimneys. Very different were its
results in the central zone of agitation, concerning which a
correspondent wrote as follows:
"There was a noise as of underground artillery, a shake, a second
shake, and in less than thirty seconds the Nagoya-Gifu plain, covering
an area of 1,200 square miles, became a sea of waves, more than 40,000
houses fell, and thousands of people lost their lives. The sequence of
events was approximately as follows: To commence at Tokio, the
capital, which is some 200 miles from the scene of the disaster, on
October 25th, very early in the morning, the inhabitants were alarmed
by a long, easy swaying of the ground, and many sought refuge outside
their doors. There were no shocks, but the ground moved back and
forth, swung round, and rose and fell with the easy, gentle motion of
a raft upon an ocean swell. Many became dizzy, and some were seized
with nausea."
These indications, together with the movements of the seismographs,
denoted a disturbance at a considerable distance, but the first
surmise that it was located under the Pacific Ocean, was unfortunately
incorrect. The scene of the catastrophe was indicated only by tidings
from its outskirts, as all direct news was cut off by the interruption
of railway and telegraphic communication. An exploratory and relief
party started on the second day from Tokio, not knowing how far they
would be able to proceed by train, and the correspondent who
accompanied them thus described his experiences:
"Leaving Tokio by a night train, early next morning we were at
Hamamatsu, 137 miles distant from Tokio, on the outside edge of the
destructive area. Here, although the motion had been sufficiently
severe to destroy some small warehouses, to displace the posts
supporting the heavy roof of a temple, and to ruffle a few tiles along
the eaves of the houses, nothing serious had occurred. At one point,
owing to the lateral spreading of an embankment, there had been a
slight sinkage of the line, and we had to proceed with caution.
Crossing the entrance to the beautiful lake of Hamana Ko, which
tradition says was joined to the sea by the breaking of a sand-spit by
the sea waves accompanying an earthquake in 1498, we rose from the
rice fields and passed over a country of hill and rock. Further along
the line signs of violent movement became more numerous. Huge stone
lanterns at the entrances of temples had been rotated or overturned,
roofs had lost their tiles, especially along the ridge, sinkages in
the line became numerous, and although there was yet another rock
barrier between us and the plain of great destruction, it was evident
that we were in an area where earth movements had been violent."
The theatre of maximum destruction was a plain, dotted with villages
and homesteads, supporting, under the garden-like culture of Japan,
500 and 800 inhabitants to the square mile, and containing two cities,
Nagoya and Gifu, with populations respectively of 162,000 and 30,000,
giving probably a round total of half a million human beings. Within
about twelve miles of Gifu, a subsidence on a vast scale took place,
engulfing a whole range of hills, while over lesser areas the soil in
many places slipped down, carrying with it dwellings and their
inmates. Gifu was a total wreck, devastated by ruin and conflagration,
causing the destruction of half its houses. Ogaki, nine miles to the
west, fared even worse, for here only 113 out of 4,434 houses
remained standing, and one-tenth of the population were killed or
wounded. In one temple, where service was being held, only two out of
the entire congregation escaped.
Nagoya, too, suffered heavily, and thousands of houses collapsed. The
damage at this place was produced by three violent shocks in quick
succession, preceded by a deep, booming sound. During the succeeding
206 hours, 6,600 earth spasms of greater or less intensity were felt
at increasing intervals, occurring in the beginning probably at the
rate of one a minute. The inhabitants were driven to bivouac in rude
shelters in the streets, and there was great suffering among the
injured, to whom it was impossible to give proper care for many days
after the disaster. Some estimates placed the figure of the killed and
wounded as high as 24,000, whilst not less than 300,000 were rendered
homeless.
Owing to the frequency of earthquake shocks in Japan, the study of
their causes and effects has had a great deal of attention there since
the introduction of modern science into the island empire. The
Japanese have proved as energetic in this direction as they are in
purely material progress on the lines of western civilization, and
already they are recognized as the most advanced of all people in
their study of seismology and its accompanying phenomena.