Buried Houses of Mount Unzen Disaster

 

Not far from the Unzen Disaster Museum is yet another memorial of the volcanic disaster from the early 1990's.

A series of houses buried under meters of material with often just their roofs showing.

These houses were buried by what is called "lahar", a kind of mudflow comprised of a slurry of pyroclastic debris, ash, rocks, etc combined with rain after a volcanic eruption.

In the eruption of 1792 a massive landslide caused enough material to flow into the Ariake Sea that it caused a megatsunami, but here the flow was much slower and everybody had safely been evacuated.

One group of houses has had a roof built over it to make a museum.

The previous post was on the architecturally intriguing Unzen Disaster Museum.

Nakayama Shrine

 

It is said that the torii at Nakayama Shrine is unique. At the time of my visit i didn't notice, but now I can see it.

An Ox statue usually signifies Tenjin, the deified spirit of Sugawara Michizane, and he is not one of the main kami enshrined here, but there must be a secondary Tenjin shrine.

Nakayama Shrine is located north of Tsuyama in the area of Ichinomiya, so named because the shrine was the ichinomiya, highest-ranked shrine, in Mimasaka Province.

The Shinmon gate was relocated here from Tsuyama Castle when the castle was dismantled in the early Meiji Period.

Nakayama Shrine was founded in 707. For much of its history it was known as Chuzen Shrine.

The three main kami enshrined are Kagamitsukuri no kami, Ame no nukado no kami, and Ishikori-dome no mikoto, with the first and third of these being associated wit mirrors. In the meiji period the names were changed but then changed back after 1946.

The shrine was destroyed by the Amago Clan in 1533 when they invaded and took over the territory.

Amago Haruhisa rebuilt the shrine in 1559.

The main buildings date from this time and are considered to be nakayama-zukuri, a style unique to the immediate vicinity.

The previous post was Tsuyama Snapshots, photos taken on my way to the shrine.

A large sacred keyaki tree, zelkova in English, is said to be 800 years old. It has a trunk diameter of 8 meters.

Unzen Disaster Museum

 

Mount Unzen in the middle of the Shimabara Peninsula in Nagasaki is a collection of volcanic peaks that erupted in 1792 in what was the worst volcanic disaster in Japanese history. The collapse of Mayuyama caused a tremendous landslide that killed thousands and then caused a megatsunami that killed thousands more on both side of the Ariake Sea.

Mount Unzen erupted again in the years between 1990 to 1995, and the disaster claimed 43 lives, many of which were media personnel covering the disaster

The eruption and pyroclastic flow destroyed villages closer to the mountains, but inhabitants had been safely evacuated.

many more houses were destroyed later by lahars, mud and debris flows with ash and other materials mixed into a slurry.

The Unzen Disaster Memorial Hall, also known as Gamadasu Dome is a museum about these disasters.

I quite liked the architecture, with most of the structure underground. It was designed by Kume Sekkei, a large design company that employs hundreds of architects.

The previous post was on shots of Mount Unzen taken on my walk to the museum.

It was too early in the day and the museum wasn't open yet, but I did visit on an earlier trip to Shimabara, so this last photo is of the interior from that visit.

Yubu Island Water Buffalo Carts

 

Yubu is a tine island 400 meters off the coast or Iriomote Island that has no ferries or bridge.

Transport to and from the island is by carts pulled by water buffalo, or by walking.

The island was formed by  deposits from the Yonara River and so is only just 1 meter above sea level. At high tide the channel is only 1 meter at the deepest point, and at lower tides is much shallower.

A line of utility poles marke the route for pedestrians and carts.

Very much a touristy thing, the drivers typically play sanshin and sing Okinawan folk songs.

Most of the island is a botanical garden. The island was settled after WWII but most left after a devastating typhoon of 1969.

The previous post was Iriomote Island Snapshots. An earlier post on Taketomi Island Water Buffalo Carts.

Mount Unzen

 

Mount Unzen is a group of volcanoes in the middle of the Shimabara Peninsula in Nagasaki, Kyushu.

The highest point is Heisei-shinzan at 1483 meters, but the main peak is Fugen-dake, but the eruptions of 1990 to 1995 made Heisei-shinzan higher.

Mount Unzen is clearly visible from most parts of the Shimabara Peninsula and even further afield.

When I visited on February 20th, 2014, on day 62 of my first walk around Kyushu, a dusting of snow made Unzen strikingly clear.

Before heading over the mountains to the other side of the peninsula I headed south a little to visit a few sites connected to the major eruptions of the 1990's.

The previous post was my diary of day 61.

Views From Mount Futago

 

At 720 mteres, 2,364 ft, above sea level, Mount Futago is the highest point of the Kunisaki Peninsula in northern Oita, Kyushu.

On clear days, looking north past Homeshima Island, the coast of Honshu can be seen.

Like much of Japan, the Kunisaki Peninsula was formed by volcanic activity, and in essence is a lava plateau with a lava dome in its centre with multiple volcanoes. It was formed between 1 and 2 million years ago.

Erosion has left many cliffs and rock formations that can be seen from the top of Mount Futago.

The peninsula is roughly circular with Mount Futago at the centre. Radiating out are 28 valleys that became home to a unique religious culture known as Rokugo Manzan.

Rokugo Manzan incorporated Tendai Buddhism with Usa Hachiman "shinto" into a unique form of shugendo. Shugendo ascetics, known as yamabushi, were often attracted to such powerful geological features.

I had climbed up from Futago-ji Temple, now the head temple of Rokugo Manzan, located on the lower slopes of Mount Futago. I had spent all day walking up from near Kitsuki on the southern edge of the peninsula. My plan was to keep walking until I hit the ferry port on the northern coast.

The previous post in this series on my 5 day walk exploring the Kunisaki Peninsula in the Autumn was on the approach to Futago-ji Temple.