Sakurajima-Guchi, Taisho Lava

After passing Kurokami Junior High School, the area is no longer the lava zone from the four major eruptions of the past. It is said to be the lava area formed by the Tempyo-Hoji Great Eruption in 764. It has a long history.

 

Now, we are finally entering the Taisho lava zone. Maybe you know about it, the Taisho Great Eruption was a major eruption that occurred on January 12, 1914. It erupted at 10:05 a.m. from the west side and at 10:15 a.m. from the southeast, killing 58 people. It is still considered the largest eruption in Japan since the 19th century. The volcanic ash from this eruption was also found on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. This is exactly where the lava made a land connection with the Osumi Peninsula. Do you find yourself thinking about how it used to be a sea? The magma of Sakurajima is different from that of Hawaii because it is very sticky and flows slowly, so some people watched from the Osumi Peninsula when the land was connected by lava.

 

The road merges with Route 220. The left side is for Kokubu and Kagoshima Airport. A little further away is the Ushine Bridge, which is the city border with Tarumizu City. The white arch is very picturesque. This place is called Sakurajima-Guchi (Sakurajima Entrance), a traffic fortress where roads from Sakurajima (Kagoshima via ferry), Tarumizu/Kanoya, and Kokubu converge. The Kagoshima Kotsu bus stop is named Sakurajima-Guchi, but the city bus stop is Kurokami-Guchi, though it is almost the same place. If you turn left at the traffic light, you will enter Tarumizu City. We go straight and continue west on Route 224.

 

Beyond the traffic light are the former settlements of Seto and Waki. Both communities were completely buried by Taisho lava. There was a shipyard here where the "Shoheimaru," known as Japan's first Western-style warship, was built. The Shoheimaru is also known as the birthplace of the Japanese flag, as it was the first ship to officially display the current Japanese flag. After the great eruption, the people who lived here migrated to other parts, such as Onobaru in Tarumizu City or Hanasato in Kanoya City. The Taisho Great Eruption forced nearly 10,000 people from all over Sakurajima to move off the island, and many of them began their lives by building new settlements with a single hoe. Public food rations were not sufficient, and they had to live in thatched houses and walk dozens of kilometers to town to sell firewood and fetch water to return home, even they lost their homes and families. Today, we can hardly imagine what it must have been like.

 

When Sakurajima was an island, there was a boat race. Men from different settlements would compete against each other to see how fast their boats could circumnavigate around Sakurajima. When the women cheered them on, they danced to the tune of “Sakurajima Shimamawari-bushi”. The tradition is still carried on in Sakurajima Koike-cho and Higashi Sakurajima-cho, and the women still dance it nowadays.