The March 11 earthquake and tsunami produced images of sometimes unimaginable devastation, but a rerelease of two pictorial magazines from the prewar era shows that such scenes are by no means new in Japanese history.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami produced images of sometimes unimaginable devastation, but a rerelease of two pictorial magazines from the prewar era shows that such scenes are by no means new in Japanese history.
The Oct. 28, 1923, and March 17, 1933, editions of the now defunct pictorial magazine The Asahi Graph, showing the destruction wrought by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1933 Sanriku Offshore Earthquake, are reproduced in a new book, "Kanzen Fukkoku Asahi Graph: Kanto Dai-shinsai/ Showa Sanriku O-tsunami" (Complete reprints of Asahi Graph: Great Kanto Earthquake and Sanriku Offshore Earthquake and massive tsunami) from Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc.
The 1923 edition was published two months after the Great Kanto Earthquake because The Asahi Shimbun company's building in Tokyo's Yurakucho district was destroyed by fire in the disaster, forcing publication of the Asahi Graph to be suspended. That disaster killed more than 70,000 people in Tokyo alone, including more than 50,000 by fire.
The issue carried 239 pictures and 185 articles, including graphic accounts of the quake and evacuation.
The special issue on the 1933 Sanriku earthquake was published two weeks after the quake struck and contained images closely resembling scenes from the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
The book is printed in B4 size, almost the same size as the original Asahi Graph, and is priced at 1,890 yen ($24.6), including tax. Major stories are accompanied by explanations.