Live camera
Lake Renge and Mount Bandai live camera
One of the lakes created by the 1888 eruption. Pond and mountain sit in the same frame, and the autumn colour layers up between them.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
One of the group of lakes an eruption created. A pond in the foreground and Mount Bandai behind it fit into the same frame.
Every pond in this area was made on the same day. In the Meiji-era eruption the northern side of the mountain collapsed, and the debris that ran down dammed the rivers, creating more than three hundred lakes and ponds at once. So the pond in the foreground and the collapsed flank of the mountain behind it are results of the same event.
Immediately after the collapse, Urabandai was bare waste ground with no trees. The forest you see now is the result of local people planting seedlings from the 1910s onwards. The differing water colours of the nearby Goshikinuma ponds come from the same aftermath: what is dissolved in the water feeding each pond, and how deep it is, show up directly as colour.
This eruption gave volcanology a term of its own. No lava came out; a steam explosion brought the body of the mountain down, and textbooks worldwide call that a Bandaian eruption. It happened on the morning of 15 July 1888, burying villages at the foot of the mountain and killing 477 people. The scoured slope at the back of the frame is the inside of the hole that morning left.
Late October into early November, when the leaves turn, is the highlight. Broadleaf trees ring the water at Urabandai, so the colour is reflected in it. On a windless morning the pond becomes a mirror. In winter it freezes and the picture is reduced to nearly white and black.
The camera faces a direction that avoids backlight morning and evening, so the mountainside shows its relief better before noon. Updates come once an hour.
About this camera
| Place | Kitashiobara, Fukushima |
| Format | Still, hourly |
| Time zone | Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) |
| Category | Nature |
| Operator | Ministry of the Environment — Internet Nature Institute |
| Terms of use | PDL 1.0 |
The operator's own page
The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.
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