Pyongyang, May 26 (KCNA) -- A great earthquake hit the Kanto area of Japan on September 1, 1923. Fire caused by the strong earthquake turned the Kanto area into a sea of flame, leaving many people homeless.

The inhabitants in the disaster-stricken area raised their voices in protest against the government, which had not taken an urgent relief measure, and even showed signs of starting an uprising.

Upset by such developments, the Japanese authorities plotted to appease their antipathy against the government by directing the spearhead of extreme public discontent to the Koreans in Japan and use the natural disaster as an opportunity for massive suppression and massacre of Koreans.

The Japanese imperialists promulgated a martial law as the royal ordinance, talking about the groundless rumors about "Koreans' uprising", and pasted in different places the fabrication paper reading "Koreans put fire" and the notice to kill the resisting Koreans in order to instigate Japanese to killing Koreans.

Under the instruction of the government, the Japanese imperialist murderers installed checkpoints on every road and made the Koreans speak a Japanese word difficult for them to pronounce. If their pronunciation were incorrect, the Japs unconditionally caught them to kill them brutally. After all, at least 23 000 Koreans were killed.

A note of Japanese proving the massacre of Koreans at the time of the great Kanto quake was disclosed in Japan six years ago. Recorded in it are the detailed data that the Japanese imperialists incited a hostile atmosphere against the Korean people to slaughter them.

This is a part of the evidence indicting the massacre of the Japanese imperialists who stained the Kanto area with the blood of Koreans. -0-