Tokio on September 1 was like the city any other day, the sky a little murky, the streets dusty and crowded, bicycles everywhere. We were about to leave for Yokokama, thence to Kamakura for a week-end, About 11.45 a.m. we went to the offices of the "Japan Advertiser? to bid friends and colleagues farewell. It was a little carly for newspapermen, but, the editorial writer was busily rummaging through encyclopedias and atlases to discover why Mussolini and the Greeks were quarreling. We talked about the war and calamities as things academic and distant. As for ourselves. we were in the security of peace and the certainty of a pleasant autumnal visit to new and interesting places, Suddenly, without warning, the building began to rock. Ceilings fell. Windows broke'and spattered glass on all sides. Books were thrown from their shelves. Everyone ran. As we came out on the street, the building next to us collapsed. We were fortunate to have nothing opposite us but a moat, whose black, filthy stream we had so often cursed, yet which we now knew would save our lives. We rushed to its edge and stood there as the earth throbbed and palpitated and tiny fissures began to show. About us now were tens of thousands, some already homeless. No one realized at that moment the seriousness of the earthquake. it was still, only as usual, a little anger in a "big hell,'' and that was all.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.