September 1 marks the 90th anniversary of the great Kanto Quake in Japan.

This day makes the Korean people hardly repress towering resentment at the Japanese imperialists as it conjures up the shuddering memory of their brutal massacre of Koreans.

An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale rocked Kanto, Japan around noon of Sept. 1, 1923.

The quake occurred when the families were lighting cooking stoves to prepare lunches, destroying houses to be enveloped in a big fire all of a sudden.

Most of the houses in Japan at that time were wooden ones.

The quake and fire left more than 1.2 million people homeless and over 200 000 were buried and burnt to death.

At that time the Japanese imperialists hatched a wicked plot to allay extreme uneasiness, fear and grievances of the inhabitants in the inflicted areas by sacrificing the Koreans in Japan.

They proclaimed a martial law by issuing the "Royal Ordinance" No. 401 in a bid to create a terror-ridden atmosphere and, at the same time, issued an official order to the governors of all prefectures to crack down upon the Koreans and socialists.

Japanese newspapers floated every day wild rumors that "Koreans set fire", "Koreans poisoned wells" and "Koreans loot", fanning up bitterness toward Koreans and atmosphere of group attack on them in the country.

The Japanese imperialist military and police and members of ultra-right organization ran wild like a group of wolves to ferret out Koreans at the instigation of the "Martial Law Command in Kanto". They cruelly killed more than 23 000 innocent Koreans in a few days by brandishing guns, Japanese swords, spears and clubs.

Human history records not a few cases of massacres by armed groups in war- and dispute-torn areas but there has never been such mass killings of Koreans by troops, police and Japanese on account of a natural disaster.

90 years have passed since then.

But the Japanese authorities have not probed the truth behind the massacre, far from making apology and reparation for it.

There are countless incidents and cases in which the Japanese imperialists killed Koreans. They include not only the massacre of Koreans during great Kanto quake but "great punitive operation in Jiandao", case of explosion of Ukishima-maru and incidents in which the Japanese imperialists buried alive Koreans forcibly taken to coal and other mines, dam construction sites, underground air-raid shelter of the imperial headquarters of Matsushiro and other military installation construction sites. But the Japanese government has neither made any probe into them nor made apology or reparation for any crime.

In particular, Japan has not yet redressed the untold human, material and mental damage it did against the Koreans after putting Korea under its illegal armed occupation for over four decades.

The Association vehemently denounces in the name of victims and bereaved families the Japanese authorities and the ultra-right reactionaries for recklessly pursuing their hostile policy toward the DPRK, while painting Japan as a victim, far from making apology and repenting of the shuddering massacre of Koreans.

It is an unavoidable historical task and moral obligation for Japan to make proper settlement of its crimes against the Korean people. This is also an essential requirement for its co-existence in Northeast Asia.

The Japanese authorities should promptly opt for redressing the past, clearly understanding that they can neither justify their blood-stained past history nor keep it buried into oblivion.