Two newly discovered archives have been found on the 1909 earthquake in southern Okinawa Island. One from the Okinawa Prefecture to the central government, and the other from independent newspaper articles in the “Ryukyu Shimpo” and the “Okinawa Mainichi Shinbun”. These archives are reliable because of the contemporaneous nature of both sources. The archives reveal that the earthquake disaster was larger than previously recorded (i. e., two fatalities, thirteen wounded, seven completely destroyed and nine partially broken houses). In total 1021 stone walls were broken, including 444 at Naha and Shuri. OMORI (1909) reported that in total fourteen kilometers of stone walls were broken at Naha and Shuri. This corresponds to on average 32m of broken wall at each location in Naha and Shuri. This average is much higher than that reported in the two newspapers (i. e., 3 to 5m per location). One and four-tenth of a kilometer may have been mistaken for fourteen kilometers by OMORI (1909).
While the damage to stone walls in Naha and Shuri was nearly the same, compared with the 1882 earthquake, the number of fatalities and injuries in Naha and Shuni were much different. Nobody died or was wounded in the 1882 earthquake, which happened at midnight, whereas in 1909, one died and eleven were wounded, and this earthquake occured a half an hour after sunset, in summer. This difference may have been caused by people being present near the stone walls.

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