{"id":42,"date":"2020-11-05T09:24:23","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T14:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/?page_id=42"},"modified":"2020-12-21T21:08:44","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T02:08:44","slug":"reflection","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Burning Poor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Differential Effects<\/strong><\/p>\n

The worst conflagration occurred in the Honjo district of Tokyo, the previous site of an Army Clothing Depot. Here, close to 40,000 people died within 15 minutes \u2013 the majority being from poor slum dwellings mentioned in the \u201cRevealing Photography\u201d page of this website.<\/p>\n

The Site<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Japan modernized and expanded their military during the Meiji restoration, authorities decided that the Depot was too small to accommodate for the growing needs of the army, and moved the site to a more spacious, affluent area. As the wealthy areas of the city morphed and modernized, the once popular Depot became just an \u201cuntidy wedge shaped patch of fifteen acres\u201d (Busch 1962, p.30). \u00a0Soon, however, the abandoned lot bustled again \u2013 yet this time with screams and cries from the burning poor.<\/p>\n

The Fire Tornados<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt began with a ghastly noise, as if coming from deep underground in the direction of the Yasuda family\u2019s forest\u2026 Soon after, an \u201cenormous wall of fire\u2026 like a tidal wave\u201d as if released from hell itself turned the air \u201cas hot as melting rock\u201d and ignited everything in its path, including scores of trapped people. The cries from humans went from \u201cwhere is my boy?\u201d to \u201cthere is no way to escape\u201d to calm, resigned prayers of \u201cNamu Amidabutsu\u201d as a sense of imminent death descended over the parcel of land\u201d\u00a0(Schencking 2008, p.301)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fire was inescapable and left a lasting dent in the hearts of families and friends of those who perished. However, these devastating effects were disproportionately felt. As the case for most disasters, the poor suffered more than the rich.<\/p>\n

Poor Perish while Rich Relax<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Singed bodies piled on top of each other after a fire tornado ripped through a former Army Clothing Depot in Honjo, Tokyo. Refugees from poor slum dwellings had gathered In this open area to escape fires in their own dense communities.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The majority of people who gathered in the Honjo district were from the urban slum dwellings that were described in the \u201cRevealing Photography\u201d section of this website. Because their own neighborhoods were densely packed, small fires quickly spread throughout their homes. Thus many sought refuge in open areas where fires would have nothing to \u201cfeed on\u201d. As a result, tens of thousands of people packed their remaining belongings on handcarts and pushed through crowded streets toward safety. Unfortunately, the once vacant Honjo district was now packed and the whirlwind firestorm killed around 40,000 people in just fifteen minutes (Busch 1962, 80).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should not be supposed, however, that anything like the whole of Tokyo was burning\u201d (Busch 1962, 84)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The metropolitan, Western fire department created during the Meiji era effectively extinguished fires in the central, affluent parts of Tokyo. However, since communication was down, the only way that firefighters in the middle of the city were informed of fires making \u201crapid headway\u201d (Busch 1962, p.81) in poorer communities was by foot. Since the Honjo district, as well as other slum dwellings on the outskirts of the city were too far, they received no help. As the poor burned, those in the center of the city with access to fire-safe buildings and the fire department were \u201clargely unscathed\u201d. One foreigner even recalls watching the scenes of fires from afar as \u201cone of dreadful but undeniable beauty\u201d(Busch 1962, 85).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Differential Effects The worst conflagration occurred in the Honjo district of Tokyo, the previous site of an Army Clothing Depot. Here, close to 40,000 people died within 15 minutes \u2013 the majority being from poor slum dwellings mentioned in the \u201cRevealing Photography\u201d page of this website. The Site As Japan modernized and expanded their military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-42","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-mlamm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}