1923 Tokyo Earthquake & 1941 Tokyo Bombing
Tokyo experienced massive fires twice in the 20th century: The Great Kanto Earthquake that occurred on September 1, 1923 and the Great Bombing of Tokyo carried out by the US air forces on March 10, 1941.
This earthquake devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, and caused widespread damage throughout the KantÅ region.The power was so great that in Kamakura, over 60 kilometres (37 mi) from the epicenter, it moved a Great Buddha statue weighing about 93 short tons (84,000 kg) almost two feet.
Casualty estimates range from about 142,800 deaths, including approximately 40,000 who went missing and were presumed dead.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923_Great_Kant%C5%8D_earthquake
The first such raid was in February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of Tokyo. The next month, 334 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March (Operation Meetinghouse), with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost Approximately 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more immediate deaths than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo
The devastated areas in Tokyo by the 1923 earthquake were as follows:
Note that the devastated areas colored in red surrounds the Imperial Palace in green.
The devastated areas in Tokyo by the 1945 air raid were as follows:
Note that the devastated ares colored in red surrounds the Imperial Palace delimited by moats colored in blue.
Both the tragedies resulted in almost the same districts (5 km x 10 km) in Tokyo City being destroyed which were mostly in the east of the Imperial Palace.
However, it was not by chance. The US air forces checked how Tokyo had been destroyed and burnt by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Then they found weak points of Tokyo or the most vulnerable places in the capital of the Empire of Japan. And they concentrated their bombings on those areas full of wooden houses and buildings.
Anyway, it was a miracle that Tokyo and Japan could recover from this catastrophic damage after WWII to be the second largest economy in the world.
Tokyo (a downtown area) at the End of WWII
Tokyo (a downtown area) Today
APPENDIX. Emperor Visiting a Shrine in Downtown Tokyo Destroyed by the 1941 March US Air Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR-6I8NUBTs
*** *** *** ***
Gen 7:7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
Gen 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
Gen 7:9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
Gen 7:10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
Gen 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
Gen 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Gen 7:13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
Gen 7:14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
Gen 7:15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
Gen 7:16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
Gen 7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.