Public Service Announcement for Yokohama City

6th September 2023

This week’s edition is on the 2023 Joint Special Exhibition by the Yokohama Archives of History and the Museum of Yokohama Urban History.

The special exhibition is called ‘100 Years Since The Great Kanto Earthquake “Surviving Catastrophe - Yokohama Citizens’ Experiences of the Disaster”’. It is being held at the Yokohama Archives of History on Naka Ward’s Nihon-Odori.

100 years ago, on 1st September 1923, tragedy struck Yokohama.

At 11.58 am, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake epicentred in Kanagawa Prefecture not only shook the land throughout the southern Kanto region, but also caused fires that razed the international trading city of Yokohama to the ground in a single day.

The earthquake, known today as the 'Great Kanto Earthquake', killed an estimated 26,623 people in Yokohama City and injured many more. As the city's social infrastructure collapsed, misinformation ran rampant, causing chaos in the affected areas. Victims, including foreigners, were forced to leave Yokohama.

It is against this backdrop, that the citizens of Yokohama who survived the catastrophe left behind diaries, memoirs and photographs of their experiences.

Through such valuable 'personal records' of citizens as well as documents that are on display for the first time, this exhibition tracks Yokohama through the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake.

The exhibition runs until 3rd December.

Admission is ¥500 for adults, and  ¥250 for elementary and junior high school students/Yokohama City residents aged 65 and above.

For enquiries, call 045-201-2100.