No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
The March 11, 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and the tsunami it generated was a classic case of natural hazards such as severe ground motion and seismic sea waves coming into contact with human society to produce a multi-dimensional natural disaster. Throughout Japanese history, writers often initially referred to such events as “unprecedented.” As time passed, other commentators would point out that in fact such events were “normal” in that they occurred repeatedly in the past. Similarly, this paper seeks to provide historical context for the recent disaster in two broad senses. First, I examine the earthquake and tsunami as part of a long, ongoing sequence of geological events. Then I focus on the human reaction to earthquake-tsunami combinations similar to those of 2011, with particular attention to events that took place in the modern era.
A Japanese translation is available here: https://apjjf.org/data/3531SmitsJapaneseTranslationV2.pdf
1 Okada Yoshimitsu, Saishin Nihon no jishin chizu (Tōkyō shoseki, 2006), p. 52.
2 Itō Kazuaki, Jishin to funka no Nihonshi (Iwanami shoten, 2002), pp. 106-7.
3 Koshimura Shun'ichi and Shutō Nobuo, “Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami,” in Chūō bōsai kaigi, 1896 Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami hōkokusho, 2005, pp. 15-17.
4 Koshimura and Shutō, “Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami,” pp. 15, 17-20. See diagram 2-9 for three possible models for this process. Most reference books do not distinguish between magnitudes for the earthquake versus the tsunami and typically state a magnitude of 8.5 for the entire event.
5 See, for example, Jay Alabaster, “Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from ancestors.” Associated Press, April 6, 2011. Alabaster mentions the “tightly knit community of Aneyoshi,” part of Miyako City, as a place that fared relative well in the recent disaster.
6 For details of the complexities of tsunami height calculations and the conclusion that a 38 meter height at Ryōri is a reasonable estimate, see Koshimura and Shutō, “Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami,” pp. 25-30.
7 Shinsai yobō chōsakai, eds., Dai-Nihon jishin shiryō, vol 1 (kō), pp. 38-39, Itō, Jihin to funka, p. 107, and Koshimura Shun'ichi, “Sanriku chihō no tsunami saigai gaiyō,” in Chūō bōsai kaigi, 1896 Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami hōkokusho, 2005, p. 3.
8 Koshimura, “Sanriku chihō,” pp. 3-4, and Itō, Jishin to funka, 107. For an example of a detailed account of the event describing the precise reach of the water, see Tōkyō daigaku jishin kenkyūjo, ed., Shinshū Nihon jishin shiryō, ho (supplement), p. 98.
9 “Higashi Nihon daishinsai: senjin wa shitteita ‘rekishi gaidō ‘shinsui sezu,” in Mainichi shinbun, April 19, 2011, link.
10 Koshimura, “Sanriku chihō,” p. 4.
11 “Namazu ga ugoku to kanarazu jishin ga okoru,” in Yomiuri shinbun, April 1, 1932, morning edition, p. 7. See also excerpts of a presentation Hatai gave on his research, “Namazu no ugoki de jishin o yochi,” in Yomiuri shinbun, October 14, 1932, morning edition, p. 4.
12 “Ika toresugi wa dai-jishin no zenchō?… senmonka mo kyōmi,” in Yomiuri Online, May 1, 2011, link.
13 Koshimura, “Sanriku chihō,” p. 5.
14 Itō, Jishin to funka no Nihonshi, pp. 107-113, and Okada, Jishin chizu, p. 58.
15 Okada, Jishin chizu, p. 59, and Itō, Jishin to funka no Nihonshi, p. 117. For photos of Ryōri Bay before and after the 1933 tsunami, see this site.
16 Okada Jishin chizu, p 50.
17 As Rodney C. Ewing and Jeroen Ritsema point out, “In the case of the Fukushima Daiichi power station, the magnitude of the earthquake (9.0 on the Richter scale, or M9) and subsequent tsunami (with a reported wave height of 14 meters) exceeded the credible event on which the nuclear power plant's design was based.” See “Underestimating nuclear accident risks: Why are rare events so common?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 3, 2011, link.
18 Regarding these stone monuments, see the widely reproduced article by Martin Fackler, “Tsunami Warnings for the Ages, Carved in Stone,” New York Times, April 20, 2011, A6.
19 “Zoku jishin zassan,” in Shinsai yobō chōsakai, Dai-Nihon jishin shiryō, pp. 420, 423. For more examples of villagers fleeing to high ground in advance of tsunamis, see, pp. 419, 462, 467, 469-471, 482-483.
20 “Jishin nikki,” in Shinsai yobō chōsakai, Dai-Nihon jishin shiryō, vol. 2 (otsu), p. 488.
21 Nishiyama Shōjin, “Ansei nankai jishin ni okeru Ōsaka de no shinsai taiō,” in Chūō bōsai kaigi, 1854 Ansei tōkai jishin, Ansei nankai jishin hōkokusho, p. 51. The decree was issued one day after the main shock of the Tōkai earthquake, just before the Nankai earthquake and its tsunami struck.
22 Nishiyama, “Ōsaka de no shinsai taiō,” pp. 51, 55-59, 62. For an image of the carnage, from the popular press, see this address(upper left image).
23 Shutō Nobuo and Koshimura Shun'ichi, “Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami ni yoru higai,” in Chūō bōsai kaigi, 1896 Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami hōkokusho, 2005, pp. 22-25.
24 Itō, Jishin to funka, p. 113 and Kudō and Koshimura, “Higai,” p. 38.
25 Shutō and Koshimura “Higai,” pp. 38-41.
26 Shutō and Koshimura, “Higai,” pp. 45-46.
27 For a thorough discussion of the emerging concept of hygiene, including in Meiji Japan, see Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).
28 Quoted in Shutō Nobuo and Koshimura Shun'ichi, “Gyōsei no ōkyū taiō,” in Chūō bōsai kaigi, 1896 Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami hōkokusho, 2005, p. 47.
29 Shutō and Koshimura, “Gyōsei,” p. 48.
30 Shutō and Koshimura, “Gyōsei,” pp. 49-50.
31 Shutō and Koshimura, “Gyōsei,” pp. 51-59.
32 Itō, Jishin to funka, p. 118 and Shutō Nobuo and Koshimura Shun'ichi, “Meiji sanriku tsunami saigai kara no fukkō,” in Chūō bōsai kaigi, 1896 Meiji Sanriku jishin tsunami hōkokusho, 2005, p. 91.
33 See also “Bōsai no machi mo kaimetsu… Tarō no higeki.” Link.
34 For the text of the declaration, photos, and details of the 1933 disaster and subsequent seawall, see Yamashita Fumio, “Sanriku Kaigan Tarō-chō ni okeru ‘tsunami bōsai no machi sengen’ to dai-bōchōtei no ryakushi,” in Rekishi jishin, no. 19 (2003), pp. 165-171, link.
35 Shutō and Koshimura, “Fukkō,” pp. 91-92.
36 Shutō and Koshimura, “Fukkō,” pp. 92-93.
37 For a detailed analysis of the orphan tsunami see Brian F. Atwater, et al., The Orphan Tsunami of 1700 (Minashigo Genroku tsunami): Japanese clues to a parent earthquake in North America (Oya-jishin wa Hokubei seikaigan ni ita) (Reston, VA: United States Geological Survey, distributed by University of Washington Press, 2005). This book is also available in digital form to the public here. Regarding myths and legends as clues to past seismic events, see R.S. Ludwin and G. J. Smits, “Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan,” in L. Piccardi and W. B. Masse, eds. Myth and Geology (London: The Geological Society, 2007), 67-78, 86-91.
You have
Access
Open access