史料に記録された中世における東日本太平洋沿岸の津波

Abstract

To find tsunamis that affected the Pacific coast of eastern Japan during period between A.D. 869 and the 1600s, we searched a historical earthquake and tsunami database for tsunami descriptions. We examined reliability of the descriptions considering the written dates and independence of documents. As a result, at least two events were found. One is the Oei tsunami which occurred on September 1st, 1420 on the Julian calendar (the 7th month 23rd day, 27th year of Oei era on the Japanese calendar). The tsunami affected Kawarago and Aiga villages in Hitachi city, Ibaraki prefecture. Sea receded 9 times during 4 hours, exposing the coastal seafloor, and many fish were carried to the land. No description of earthquake ground shaking was found. The other is the Kyotoku earthquake tsunami which occurred on December 12th, 1454 (11th month 23rd day, 3rd year of Kyotoku era). An earthquake occurred in night and the tsunami widely inundated the coastal area of “Oshu” (the old name of province from Aomori to Fukushima prefectures). Many people were killed in the tsunami. Another entry in the database on December 31st, 1455 (11th month 23rd day, first year of Kosho era) is likely to be a fake event.