The occurred at 02:00 local time on December 31 (17:00 December 30 UTC). The

epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...

was near Edo, the forerunner of present-day

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, in the southern part of the

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. An estimated 2,300 people were killed by the destruction and subsequent fires. The earthquake triggered a major

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

which caused many additional casualties, giving a total death toll of at least 5,233, possibly up to 200,000. Genroku is a Japanese era spanning from 1688 through 1704.

Tectonic setting

The Kantō Region lies at the complex triple junction, where the convergent boundaries between the subducting

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

and

Philippine Sea plate The Philippine Sea plate or the Philippine plate is a tectonic plate comprising oceanic lithosphere that lies beneath the Philippine Sea, to the east of the Philippines. Most segments of the Philippines, including northern Luzon, are part of ...

s and the overriding North American and Eurasian plates meet. Earthquakes with epicenters in the Kanto region may occur within the Eurasian plate, at the Eurasian plate/Philippine Sea plate interface, within the Philippine Sea plate, at the Philippine Sea plate/Pacific plate interface or within the Pacific plate. In addition to this set of major plates, it has been suggested that there is also a separate thick, wide body, a fragment of Pacific plate

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the lithospheric mantle, the topmost portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time ...

. The 1703 earthquake is thought to have involved rupture of the interface between the Eurasian plate and the Philippine Sea plate.

Earthquake

The earthquake was associated with areas of both uplift and subsidence. On both the Bōsō Peninsula and

Miura Peninsula is a peninsula located in Kanagawa, Japan. It lies south of Yokohama and Tokyo and divides Tokyo Bay, to the east, from Sagami Bay, to the west. Cities and towns on the Miura Peninsula include Yokosuka, Miura, Hayama, Zushi, and Kamak ...

a clear paleo shoreline has been identified, indicating up to of uplift near Mera (about south of Tateyama) and up to of uplift on Miura, increasing to the south. This distribution of uplift, coupled with modelling of the tsunami, indicate that at least two and probably three fault segments ruptured during the earthquake.

Tsunami

The tsunami had run-up heights of or more over a wide area, with a maximum of at Wada and at both Izu Ōshima and Ainohama.

Damage

The area of greatest damage due to the earthquake shaking was in

Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

, although

Shizuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,555,818 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Pref ...

was also affected. The earthquake caused many large fires, particularly at

Odawara is a Cities of Japan, city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 188,482 and a population density of 1,700 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Odawara lies in the Ashigara Plains, in ...

, increasing both the degree of damage and the number of deaths. A total of 8,007 houses were destroyed by the shaking and a further 563 houses by the fires, causing 2,291 deaths. About of coastline was severely affected by the tsunami, with deaths being caused from Shimoda on the east coast of the

Izu Peninsula The is a mountainous peninsula with a deeply indented coastline to the west of Tokyo on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of the island of Honshu, Japan, the largest of the four main islands of Japan. Formerly known as Izu Province, Izu peninsu ...

in the west to Isumi on the east side of the Bōsō Peninsula to the east. There was also a single death on the island of

Hachijō-jima is a volcano, volcanic Islands of Japan, Japanese island in the Philippine Sea. It is about south of the special wards of Tokyo. It is part of the Izu Islands, Izu archipelago and within the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. Its only municipalit ...

about south of the earthquake's epicentre, where the tsunami was high. The total number of casualties from earthquake, fires and tsunami has been reported as 5,233. Other estimates cite much higher figures, with 10,000 in total, and one source that gives 200,000.

References

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External links