At noon on September 1, 1923, completely without warning, a massive earthquake hit the city of Tokyo. Working at the Kabutochō office since morning, Eiichi was going over a pile of papers on his desk when suddenly he felt the room shake violently. A large mirror on the mantelpiece fell off and shattered into small pieces. His secretary helped him over the glass-covered floor to the door, where their footing was again shaken by a second violent tremor. The chains on the chandelier hanging high in the center of the room snapped and the fixture crashed to the floor. As they emerged into the swaying corridor, eerie sounds echoed up and down the stairs, as the quake toppled furnishings and twisted the building. One of the gateposts had fallen over into the driveway, blocking the way out of the compound. Eiichi walked to the Dai-ichi Bank, located nearby, and borrowed a car to take him back home to Asukayama.

As he made his way home he thought that although it was quite a big earthquake, it had not done much damage. The Asukayama house was only partially affected. After nightfall, however, when he saw the sky over the city's low-lying shitamachi area colored bright red with the blaze of fires, he began to think the scale of the damage inflicted must be extraordinary. The next morning, just as he had feared, it was reported that fires had spread through the Nihonbashi, Kyōbashi, Kanda, Fukagawa, Asakusa, and other areas – all densely populated areas of the city – burning them almost completely to ashes. Indeed, the Dai-ichi Bank building and Eiichi's own Kabutochō office had not escaped the flames.

The losses were devastating. The Kabutochō office building had originally been Eiichi's private residence. It had been completed in 1888, during the so-called Rokumeikan era, when Europeanization of architecture was at its height. Designed by Tatsuno Kingo, the pioneer of modern Japanese architecture famous for the design of Tokyo Station, the building was a rare example of a private residence in the purely European style at that time. It stood at the edge of one of Tokyo's canals, evoking the atmosphere of Venice with a row of Gothic pillars on the second- floor veranda that reflected on the canal's waters.