Mt. Fuji is beautiful, but what if...

Seismologists and volcano experts such as Dr. Masaaki Kimura, graduate of Japan's Tokyo University and the Lamont geological institute in the US, have observed preliminary signs of a potential eruption of iconic Mt. Fuji. It is thinkable that, within our lifetimes, possibly within the next ten years, Mt. Fuji will erupt. If so, the greatest risk to people living in the vicinity will be from volcanic ash. Do you have goggles in your disaster kit? Dr. Kimura reminds us that volcanic ash is a lot like grains of ground-up glass.

Meanwhile, the government is making contingency plans. The Japan Times online has this to say:

"Mount Fuji, a 3,776-meter volcano, straddles Shizuoka and Yamanashi and is close to the border of Kanagawa. The iconic mountain, registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site last year, has erupted many times in the past.

The 470,000 people live in areas where 30 cm or more of volcanic ash is expected to fall based on data from the previous eruption in 1707 and a Mount Fuji hazard map prepared by the central government in 2004.

In these areas, wooden houses are at risk of being crushed under volcanic ash, which becomes heavy after absorbing rain."

(for the complete article, please go to The Japan Times)

Tremors, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Oh My!

Here's how pansies look when they've been sprinkled with volcano dust.


There were mild tremors on Saturday and Sunday in Tokyo. On Monday morning we heard that Mt. Asama (Gunma Prefecture) had erupted shortly after midnight. The dust didn't hurt the flowers, but it did ugly things to people's shiny-clean cars.