^56 A. Imamura 



I must inentiou unotlier causes which helped the growth of the 

 confjagration. That is the lessened resistance to fire vvhicli many 

 houses exhibited as a result of damage from the earthquake. Even 

 buildings which had been believed to be perfectly fire-proof lost their 

 safety against fire through the falling down of tiles from the roof, or 

 the fracturing of gables or outer walls. 



The total number of houses which collapsed in the city is likely 

 to have amounted to as much as 10,000, so that the loss of lives due 

 to the direct effect of the shock would have been not much greater 

 than 1000, but this number was increased nearly a hundred fold as a 

 consequence of the great fire. The majority of the houses which col- 

 lapsed were burnt up with people buried under them, but the number 

 of deaths thus caused can by no means reach to such a vast total as 

 shown in the table. In the next few lines I will explain how crowds 

 of people were killed in different quarters of the city. 



First of all, I must mention the falling down of bridges caused 

 by the quake and fire, which made it difficult for refugees to escape 

 out of the flames. The total number of bridges within the burnt area 

 amounted to 353. Of these, only 76 remained intact, and 277, or 80 

 per cent, were destroyed. Of these bridges, 246 were destroyed by 

 fire, mostly caused by the refugees' goods placed on them. This 

 obliged thousands of people to flee into the water where most of them 

 were drowned. 



Soon after the outbreak of fire, people in less dangerous situations 

 observed a strange cloud whirling up in the sky of the burning area; 

 this was a kind of cumulus (PI. XXXVII A.). It is said that such a 

 cumulus is liable to be accompanied by squalls and consequently to 

 give rise to the occurrence of a tornado. In fact, many tornadoes 

 were observed in the different burning towns, intensifying tlie flames 

 in their way and causing sad scenes among the refugees here and 

 there. The most remarkable tornado was one which appeared at first 

 in the northern corner of the city near the right bank of the River 

 Sumida ; it swept down along the same side of the river and crossed 

 it near Ryogoku Bridge to occasion there oue of the most pitiful scenes 

 the world had ever witnessed. I think it wall not be out of place to 

 quote here Prof. S. Nakamura's address read before the meeting of the 

 Pan-Pacific Club. 



" The most unhappy and sad catastrophe of this sort happened on 

 a tremendous scale at the now notorious ground formerly occupied by 



