Live cameras in Motomachi, Japan

Motomachi is a district of Bihoro, a farming town in Abashiri District, Okhotsk Subprefecture, in eastern Hokkaido. The town takes its name from an Ainu phrase usually translated as a place of much water. Bihoro covers about 438 square kilometers and had about 18,700 residents at the 2020 census, well down from its peak decades ago. The land rises south of town toward Bihoro Pass, a lookout at 525 m on National Route 243 that sits on the rim above Lake Kussharo, the largest caldera lake in Japan by surface area, inside Akan-Mashu National Park.

There are no volcano cameras in Motomachi itself. The ones on this page are the nearest on our map, roughly 35 to 50 km away, and all come from the Japan Meteorological Agency. Three look at Atosanupuri, also called Mount Io or Iozan, a low sulfur mountain near Kawayu whose fumaroles hiss and steam beside the road: one from its northeast foot, one from the Iozan car park to the north, and one from the south shore of Lake Kussharo. The fourth, at Kami-Teshibetsu, watches Meakandake, a 1,499 m volcano near Lake Akan that had small steam-driven eruptions in 2006 and 2008. JMA refreshes these stills every couple of minutes and uses them, together with seismic and other instruments, when it sets the Volcanic Alert Level from 1 to 5.

When to look

Local time is Japan Standard Time, UTC+9, all year. Summer mornings start very early this far east, often before four, and a sea of clouds can fill the Kussharo basin at dawn, seen best from the pass. Winters are long and cold, with lows below minus 30 degrees Celsius on record; the lake freezes over and whooper swans gather at warm spots such as Sunayu. Steam from Iozan stands out most on calm, frosty days.

Nearby, Lake Mashu and Lake Akan are both worth a visit, and the town's aviation park displays retired Self-Defense Force aircraft.

Sources: Bihoro, Hokkaido - Wikipedia · Bihoro Pass - Hokkaido Official Tourism Site · Lake Kussharo - Wikipedia · JMA volcano monitoring cameras.