Anthropological Approach to Vulnerability and Major Hazards - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 280

the interpretation of causes and the distribution of instances or people
judged responsible. For the case that will concern us presently, the
Edoites would notice two singularities.
7.4.1. Destruction of governmental infrastructures and granaries
Most of the populated living quarters (with the exception of
Fukagawa and Yoshiwara) as well as some residences of the Japanese
nobility ( daimyô ) were spared, but the administrative and military
infrastructures, linked to power (that of the bakufu ), were for the most
part severely damaged. The contrast was so striking that the Japanese
felt that the government was “targeted”. This contributed to increasing
a social instability swift to overinterpret anything that might be
susceptible to consolidating the well-foundedness of the critics with
regard to the government. In the first instance, the latter had to face a
flood of protestations.
Figure 7.1. The government, symbolized by the horse without a rider,
is brought down by a Namazu (source: [SMI 08, p. 6])
The first wave of prints criticized the ruling powers with such
virulence that the bakufu strove very quickly, after only a few days, to