Every Sept. 1, Tokyo residents are reminded of the tragedy of the Great Kanto Earthquake, which claimed more than 100,000 lives that fateful day in 1923. Now designated Disaster Prevention Day, it is a time for annual quake and fire drills.
The government estimates that 11,000 people would die in the worst-case scenario — a magnitude 7.3 quake jolting Tokyo around 6 p.m. on a weekday in winter, the worst time for fires and thus the highest casualties.
Of them, 6,200 would be fatally burned in the resultant fires, and 850,000 houses and other buildings would collapse or burn down.
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