Passage Two At two minutes to noon in September 1 of 1923, the great clock in Tokyo
stopped. (82) Tokyo Bay shook as if huge rug had been pulled from under it. (83)
Towered, above the bay, the 4000-meter Mount Fuji stood above a deep trench in
the sea. (84) It was from this trench where the earthquake came at a
magnitude of 8.3 on the Richter scale. Huge waves swept over the
city. (85) Boats were driven inland, and buildings and people were dragged
out sea. (86) The tremors dislodged part of a hillside, which gave way,
brushing trains, stations and bodies the wafer below. (87) Three massive
shocks wrecked the of Tokyo and Yokohama and, during the next six hours,
there were more than 100 aftershocks. The casualties were
enormous, but there were also some lucky survivors. (88) The most
remarkably was a woman who was having a bath in her room at the Tokyo Grand
Hotel. (89) As for the hotel collapsed, she and her bath gracefully
descended to the street, (90) leave both her and the bath water
intact.