Before walking

As you make your rounds, please pay attention to the evacuation shelters and evacuation ports.

 

The evacuation shelter is to protect us from a large eruption of Sakurajima. But I’m not saying that you should run into that when the volcano erupts. It is not necessary to do so in the case of one of Sakurajima’s everyday eruptions. However, in the event of a very large-scale eruption, large cinders are expected to fly into residential areas, so people temporarily defend themselves by running into evacuation shelters. There are many of them around Sakurajima, and you can find more than ten of them along the road you take when making a full circle around Sakurajima, so please look for them. There are no set standards, so they come in all shapes and sizes – some are surrounded by lava, others have the shape of an arch, and so on. It’s very interesting! You are also free to enter as you please.

 

The evacuation port is used for the Sakurajima Ferry ships to land and pick up residents in the event of an island-wide evacuation (when all residents have to evacuate off the island). Those ships are large but can land directly on the pier without using a ferryboat. All ports are numbered: No. 1 is Akamizu Port in the southwestern part of the island, Sakurajima Port is No. 21 in counterclockwise order from there, and Shinjima Port is No. 22. Each is assigned a ship for evacuation, and those ships call at several evacuation ports and then run to Kagoshima Port. Now, however, the plan has changed to evacuation by bus in the direction of the Osumi Peninsula, as ships canno t navigate if a typhoon comes.

 

This does not mean that evacuation by ship will be eliminated. The white building at the evacuation port is easy to recognize from the road. It is easy to see No. 19 Hase Port 《長谷港》 and so on.