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Koreans massacred in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake

The Japanese government surreptitiously deleted a report from its webpage with details about the massacre of Koreans in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, a newspaper reported.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported on Apr. 19 that Japan’s Cabinet Office deleted a disaster-related report on its webpage that contained accounts of the massacre of Koreans at the time of the 1923 earthquake. The deleted report was drafted between 2003 and 2010 by the Expert Council on Carrying on the Lessons of Disasters, a group affiliated with the Japanese government. In addition to the Great Kanto Earthquake, the report also included details about numerous other disasters, with the goal of teaching future generations about lessons learned from tragedies since the Edo era. The Cabinet Office removed the entire report - not just the portions about the earthquake - from its web page, noting that many critics had complained about its treatment of the massacre of Koreans in the earthquake’s wake.

The massacre is addressed in the report in a section titled “Incidents of Murder and Injury.”

“Over 105,000 people died or disappeared [at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake], with upwards of 1% of [those who died] believed to have been murdered,” the report said.

“Numerous murders were committed by authorities and local residents. Many instances could be appropriately described as massacres. Koreans accounted for the largest number of targets, and a minority of Chinese and Japanese people were also victimized,” it continued.

“[The incident] should be kept in mind for future disaster prevention activity as a worst-case scenario of what has happened in cases of large-scale disasters,” it advised.

In the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, police and vigilante groups massacred Koreans, along with Chinese suspected of being Koreans, amid false rumors that Koreans had poisoned wells. An estimated 6,000 Koreans were killed at the time.

The Cabinet Office explained that it had asserted its authority to remove the report during a web page revamp after many people complained about its inclusion of the passage on the massacre of Koreans. It also said it would consider sending copies individually by email to people who wish to view it in the future.

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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