Live camera
Iwabuchi Floodgate live camera — Kita, Tokyo
The floodgate where the Sumida River branches off the Arakawa, seen from Kita ward on the right bank. The picture refreshes every minute. The blue gates stand across the middle of the frame. 20.5 km from the mouth.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
Blue gates stand across the middle of the frame. This is the point where the Sumida River leaves the Arakawa, and the camera stands on the right bank, on the Shimo side in Kita ward.
This gate is the key to understanding the river. Below here the Arakawa is not a natural river but the Arakawa Floodway, a channel dug by hand between the end of the Meiji era and the early Showa era to send floods out to sea instead of through the city. That is why the channel is straight and wide with high levees on both banks, and this gate is the door that keeps rising water out of the Sumida side. The red original gate, built in the Taisho era, still stands preserved right beside it.
The work on the original gate was directed by Akira Aoyama, known as the only Japanese engineer to have worked on the building of the Panama Canal. He came home to the Home Ministry and to this floodway, and later took on the Okozu Diversion in Niigata. The red gate was finished in 1924; the blue one took over the job in 1982.
20.5 kilometres from the river mouth. Whether the gates are shut is something the picture tells you directly.
The still refreshes every minute. Rough days are dark and smeared with rain. Decisions about evacuating belong to your local authority.
About this camera
| Place | Kita, Tokyo |
| Format | Still, every minute |
| Time zone | Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) |
| Category | River |
| Operator | MLIT Arakawa Downstream River Office |
| 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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