Giant Catfish

Tagged as: Earthquake, Kantō, Sendai

From my bal­cony, North Tokyo 2002.

Legend has it that under­neath Tokyo bay sleeps a giant cat­fish which toss­es and turns caus­ing the many tremors felt almost every day in the city. The big fish awakes every sev­en­ty years, caus­ing a dev­as­tat­ing earthquake.

This has hap­pened as reg­u­lar­ly as clock­work through the city’s his­to­ry, and the last big one was the Great Kan­tō Earth­quake, which struck in 1923, com­plete­ly lev­el­ing the city. Anoth­er major dis­as­ter in recent his­to­ry was the blan­ket bomb­ing of the Sec­ond World War. How­ev­er, that did not count.

It may have over­slept for 18 years, but today the cat­fish awoke.

God, Nep­tune, Giant Cat­fish: Next time you feel like show­ing off, send us a mir­a­cle not a tragedy.