Tsunami derives from the Japanese words meaning “wave in a harbour”, and describes a wave that exerts its full destructive force when reaching land.
The earthquake and tsunami which devastated Japan in March 2011 is still fresh in many peoples’ minds. Waves forty metres high threatened lives and property, and also threatened to destabilise a number of Japan’s nuclear reactors. But this was not the first time Japan had suffered in this way. In fact, the first appearace of the word tsunami in English came after the 1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake off the coast of Honshu. In Gleanings in Buddha Fields, Lafcadio Hearn describes the fear and panic caused by this event:
‘Tsunami!’ shrieked the people; and then all shrieks and all sounds and all power to hear sounds were annihilated by a nameless shock as the colossal swell smote the shore”.
Born in Greece, brought up in Ireland, Hearn become a journalist in the United States, before being sent as a foreign correspondent to the West Indies and then Japan where he spent the last 14 years of his life. The man and the moment combined, and a name was given to one of nature’s greatest threats. Interest in Japanese culture increased dramatically around 1900 and the English-speaking person on the spot was Hearn.
His name survives in popular culture. A play based on his life and work has recently been produced and in the Ian Fleming novel You Only Live Twice James Bond asks Blofield not to give him too many details about Japan with the words “Spare me the Lafcadio Hearn”.
