Toyako Visitor Center & Volcano Science Museum was added to Your Favorites!
Shikotsu-Tōya NP., Hokkaido
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On 29 March 2000, 2 days before Usu erupted, about 13,000 people had evacuated; by eruption day, the total was about 16,000. The swift warning and evacuation prevented human casualties.
On one winter walk with Visitor Center staff along the nearby Nishiyama crater trail, thermometers read −2.5°C in the air but 61°C in the soil; a small fumarole measured a remarkable 96.5°C.
In 2000, more than 65 craters opened near Nishiyama and Konpira; rising magma also shoved up roads and buildings to form 2000 Shinzan. The museum’s model helps visitors trace this upheaval.
During Usu’s 1910 eruption, Fusakichi Omori and his team installed pendulum seismometers and recorded volcanic tremor for the first time in the world—an early milestone in the science explored here.
The damaged kei truck and bent railway rails in the Volcano Science Museum are real disaster remnants, not models. Their twisted metal makes the force of eruption-related ground movement tangible.
In 1910, police chief Seiichi Iida used earthquakes as an eruption warning. After attending Omori’s lectures, he ordered residents within 12 km of Usu to evacuate before it erupted—a striking science-to-safety story.
The Visitor Center floor doubles as a 1:1,200 aerial map of Lake Toya and Usu. Seven marker posts point out observation spots, helping visitors locate eruption sites and damage across the landscape.
The center’s 442 solar panels can produce up to 70 kW—enough, at peak output, to supply all the electricity used inside. Even this volcano-and-lake learning hub has a renewable-energy story.
Lake Toya is one of Japan’s northernmost ice-free lakes, a surprising winter trait highlighted in the Visitor Center’s introduction to the lake and its surrounding nature.
