The cause was a rupture of part of the convergent boundary where the Philippine Sea plate is subducting beneath the Okhotsk microplate along the line of the Sagami Trough.

[20] The SS Dongola's captain reported that, while he was anchored in Yokohama's inner harbor: At 11.55 a.m. ship commenced to tremble and vibrate violently and on looking towards the shore it was seen that a terrible earthquake was taking place, buildings were collapsing in all directions and in a few minutes nothing could be seen for clouds of dust.

[21]This earthquake devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, and caused widespread damage throughout the Kantō region.

[citation needed] According to the Japanese construction company Kajima Kobori Research's conclusive report of September 2004, 105,385 deaths were confirmed in the 1923 quake.

The single greatest loss of life was caused by a fire whirl that engulfed the Rikugun Honjo Hifukusho (formerly the Army Clothing Depot) in downtown Tokyo, where about 38,000 people who had taken shelter there during the earthquake were incinerated.

[29]A strong typhoon centered off the coast of the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture brought high winds to Tokyo Bay at about the same time as the earthquake.

[39] In the confusion after the quake, mass murder of Koreans by mobs occurred in urban Tokyo and Yokohama, fueled by rumors of rebellion and sabotage.

The numerous fires and cloudy well water, a little-known effect of a large quake, all seemed to confirm the rumors of the panic-stricken survivors who were living amidst the rubble.

Vigilante groups set up roadblocks in cities, and tested civilians with a shibboleth for supposedly Korean-accented Japanese: deporting, beating, or killing those who failed.

[citation needed] In some towns, even police stations into which Korean people had escaped were attacked by mobs, whereas in other neighborhoods, civilians took steps to protect them.

Frank Lloyd Wright received credit for designing the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, to withstand the quake, although in fact the building was damaged, though standing, by the shock.

The earthquake damaged the ship's hull beyond repair, leading it to be scrapped, and the unfinished fast battleship Kaga was converted into an aircraft carrier in its place.

[53] The Honda Point Disaster on the West Coast of the United States, in which seven US Navy destroyers ran aground eight days later, killing 23 sailors, has been attributed in part to navigational errors caused by unusual currents set up by the earthquake in Japan.

Every year on this date, schools across Japan take a moment of silence at the precise time the earthquake hit in memory of the lives lost.

Some discreet memorials are located in Yokoamicho Park in Sumida Ward, at the site of the open space in which an estimated 38,000 people were killed by a single fire whirl.

In Hiroshi Aramata's historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari, a supernatural explanation is given for the cause of the Great Kantō earthquake, connecting it with the principles of feng shui.

In the TV adaptation of the novel Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a young Hansu escapes Yokohama with his father's former yakuza employer, Ryoichi, from the Great Kantō Earthquake.

In Oswald Wynd's novel The Ginger Tree, Mary Mackenzie survives the earthquake, and later bases her clothing-design company in one of the few buildings that remained standing in the aftermath.

[57] The short story was adapted into the song "Taishō Roman" by Yoasobi;[58] the music video features a giant clock pointing to 11:58, the time of the earthquake.

Several places frequented by the protagonist Aria Kanbara, like her boarding school and the house of the rich Nishimikado clan that she is an illegitimate member of, become shelters for the wounded and the homeless.

After a brief time there, she's sent back to the already destroyed Tokyo, and she, alongside her soon-to-be love interest Seiji Horie and two young boys named Hideo and Kenichi, is taken in by a friend of the late Takao, Dr. Oikawa.

Waki Yamato's manga Haikara-san ga Tōru actually reaches its climax after the Great Kantō earthquake—which happens right before the wedding of the female lead, Benio Hanamura, and her second love Tousei.

In the 2013 animated film by director Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises, the protagonist Jiro Horikoshi is traveling to Tokyo by train to study engineering.

In the 2022 animated film Suzume no Tojimari, directed by Makoto Shinkai, the earthquake is briefly alluded to in a segment recounting Tokyo's devastation 100 years prior.