The Mainichi Shimbun reported today (October 12) that newly identified official documents show the Japanese government was aware of the massacre of Koreans during the 1923 Kanto Earthquake and deliberately covered it up.

Goto Amane, a researcher specializing in the Kanto Earthquake, told Mainichi that a detailed verification of recently discovered official documents from the time indicates the state thoroughly investigated atrocities such as the massacre of Koreans triggered by false rumors. However, the government covered up the incidents by minimizing arrests of perpetrators and avoiding punishment as much as possible, according to the report.

The Kanto Earthquake was a massive magnitude 7.9 tremor that struck the Kanto region, including Tokyo and Yokohama, on September 1, 1923.

Amid the disaster, which caused around 100,000 casualties, false rumors spread claiming that "Koreans are rioting, poisoning wells," and "committing arson." Consequently, thousands of Koreans living in Japan lost their lives at the hands of Japanese vigilante groups, police, and soldiers.

The document cited by Goto as evidence is titled "Seongobisu No. 22," a 50-page report in which the governor of Kanagawa Prefecture investigated crimes and protection status involving Koreans and Chinese within the prefecture following the earthquake.

The document was acquired from an antiquarian bookstore by the late Kang Duk-sang, a Korean historian in Japan who researched the massacre, and was made public in 2023. Goto subsequently analyzed and unveiled its contents.

According to the document, although Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture was the origin point where the rumors first spread and the site of the most severe massacres, crimes committed by Koreans numbered only 14, Goto stated.

Among them, nine suspects were killed by Japanese crowds, and the identities of only five are known, the reports showed.

Even for cases with clear criminal details, there were only four theft cases, which were committed by single individuals or groups of two to three. Not a single instance of collective crime or rioting by Koreans was found.

Conversely, cases in which Koreans were killed or injured after being mistakenly identified as criminals totaled 80, resulting in 170 deaths and 14 injuries.

The perpetrators in all of these cases were crowds. Among the 80 cases, suspects were identified in only 10, and out of those 10, only 3 cases (two for murder and one for injury) resulted in arrests by the police for killing or injuring Koreans, according to Goto.

Goto pointed out, "Even while knowing that massacre incidents had occurred, there was a serious level of mishandling that should never happen in a modern state, where perpetrators were neither arrested nor brought to trial."

Regarding the Japanese government's official stance on the massacre of Koreans during the earthquake—which claims that "no records capable of ascertaining the facts can be found within the government"—Goto countered by stating, "There are numerous types of investigative reports compiled by the Home Ministry, the Ministry of Justice, the Martial Law Headquarters (military), the Japanese Government-General of Korea, various prefectures, cities, towns, villages, and prefectural police departments."

On August 30, 2023, then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno Hirokazu stated regarding the massacre of Koreans perpetrated by Japanese people during the Kanto Earthquake, "Limiting ourselves to government investigations, no records capable of ascertaining the facts have been found."

(Photo: Yonhap News)