TOKYO: People were preparing their midday meals, many on charcoal braziers, when the Great Kanto earthquake struck Tokyo and surrounding areas on September 1, 1923.

The massive quake, measuring 7.9 on the open-ended Richter scale, killed more than 140,000 people as buildings collapsed and firestorms turned the capital into a raging inferno. The homes of more than 3.2 million were damaged or destroyed.

Nearly 80 years later, Tokyo, now one of the world’s leading financial centres and home to over 12.3 million people, is better prepared.

But just eight years ago a quake in the western city of Kobe killed more than 6,400 people and experts say the lessons from that 1995 disaster have not all been translated into action.

“The destruction of houses caused the biggest loss of life (in Kobe), but I think this essential part remains unresolved,” said Masanori Hamada, a professor of engineering at Waseda University in Tokyo.

A strong earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale hit northeastern Japan in May. No one was killed and there was only minor damage but experts attributed that to the fact that the epicentre of the quake was deep, not shallow as in Kobe.

One recent government study warned that an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale and centred on an area near Shizuoka, 150 kms west of Tokyo, could kill 9,200 people and cause up to 37 trillion yen ($315 billion) in damage.

One German insurer has dubbed the Tokyo-Yokohama area the “riskiest megacity” in the world and no one really knows what would happen if a major earthquake hit Tokyo itself.

Tokyo alone accounts for around 17 per cent of Japan’s gross domestic product and is headquarters for most of corporate Japan and well as the centre of government.—Reuters