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is a public park in the Yokoami district of
Sumida, Tokyois one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It calls itself Sumida City in English.As of 2008, the ward has an estimated population of 240,296 and a density of 17,480 persons per km²...
, Japan.
History
Following the
Great Kantō earthquakeThe struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58:44 am JST on September 1, 1923. Varied accounts hold that the duration of the earthquake was between 4 and 10 minutes...
on 1 September 1923, as many as 44,000 people were killed in the park when it was swept by a
firestormA firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires, forest fires, and wildfires...
. Following this disaster the park became the location of the main memorial to the earthquake; the Earthquake Memorial Hall and a nearby
charnel houseA charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves...
containing the ashes of 58,000 victims of the earthquake.
Following
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the park also became the location of the main memorial to the victims of the Bombing of Tokyo in 1944 and 1945. The ashes of 105,400 people killed in the raids were interred in Yokoamicho Park between 1948 and 1951. A memorial to the people killed in the raids was opened in the park in March 2001.