Live camera
Mount Tokachi live camera — Biei, Hokkaido
The 1926 eruption melted the snow all at once into a mudflow that did great damage below. The summit is seen over the gentle pastureland on the Biei side.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
One of the volcanoes the Japan Meteorological Agency keeps under constant watch. The camera looks at the 2,077-metre summit across the gentle pasture land on the Biei side.
In the 1926 eruption the snow on the summit melted all at once, became a mudflow, and ran down to the settlements below, causing heavy damage. It is a case where snow and a volcano together proved more dangerous than lava alone, and it is the reason snow-capped volcanoes are watched this closely.
Besides 1926, there was another large eruption on the night of 29 June 1962. It destroyed the office of a sulphur mine, killing five people and injuring eleven. By the small hours of the next morning the plume had reached 12,000 metres, ash fell as far as Shiretoko and the southern Kurils, and the explosion was heard 190 kilometres away. In July 2022 molten sulphur flowed out of the crater.
Winter makes the best picture. Steam is the only thing rising from an otherwise white mountainside, and the colder it is, the whiter and thicker it looks. Late September brings autumn colour; the Daisetsuzan range turns earlier than anywhere else in Japan.
Mornings are better. On many days cloud builds in the afternoon and hides the summit alone. The Biei hills in the foreground also change the whole frame between summer green and the bare fields after harvest. A still image, refreshed every two minutes.
About this camera
| Place | Biei, Hokkaido |
| Format | Still, every 2 min |
| Time zone | Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) |
| Category | Volcano · Nature |
| Operator | Japan Meteorological Agency — volcano surveillance cameras |
| 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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