Japan marks 100 years since the devastating Great Kanto Quake, with disaster drills nationwide

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s prime minister has staged a televised a disaster drill in which he declared a fictional state of emergency based on a real-life earthquake that devastated the capital region a century ago. Fumio Kishida led the exercise Friday, based on a hypothetical 7.3-magnitude tremblor, as Japan marked the centennial of the 1923 Great Kanto Quake that killed more than 100,000 people. The aftermath of the real quake featured a tragedy that the government has never fully acknowledged: The mass murder of ethnic Koreans as baseless rumors swirled that they were poisoning wells. Japan, which sits on the Pacific “ring of fire,” is among the world’s most quake-prone countries.