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Abstract

On Saturday the 1^st of September 1923 at a few minutes to noon, when the Kanto earthquake occurred, the foreign population of the harbor of Yokohama reached 2,500 people of different nationalities, and a similar presence was in Tokyo, which as the capital hosted the officers of embassies, consulates and trade companies. These foreign residents left impressive records of the earthquake occurrence, as well as the fire and tsunami that followed. As far as we could ascertain, their accounts have not been used yet to compile either the official reports or the published monographs on social and scientific aspects, works that mostly relied on and referenced the news press and official Japanese statements. To add a different viewpoint to the overall understanding of this earthquake, we concentrated on the considerable quantity of documents now stored at The National Archives (Kew Gardens, UK) and at the Affaires Etrangers-Archives Diplomatique (La Corneuve, Paris, France) produced by British and French diplomats as well as foreign residents of different nationalities who were in Yokohama and Tokyo at the time of the earthquake. The most significant testimonies from both cities are presented and compared, and the role in the relief actions of the British Royal Navy and of ships of other countries are put in the foreground. The immediacy of the descriptions they contain and the details they supply bring us back to the shaking and shocking moments experienced by the people living in Yokohama and Tokyo one hundred years ago.