Volcano

Mount Kusatsu-Shirane: 2 Live Cameras in Japan

Two cameras on the mountain that holds Yugama, one of the most acidic crater lakes in the world. A 2018 eruption came from a side nobody was watching.

What you can see

Yugama is extraordinarily acidic. The water is a milky green and nothing grows around it. The Meteorological Agency camera covers the mountain including this crater.

The second camera, at Manza and Karafuki, sits partway up the mountain. Steam rises continuously out of the hillside; white vapour and yellow-stained ground fill the whole slope. It is the kind of place where you can almost smell the sulphur through the screen.

The eruption of January 2018 did not come from Yugama, which was the crater under watch. It came from Motoshirane, some way to the south, right beside a ski area. It is remembered as the eruption that showed the active spot can move.

Access here is restricted from time to time because of volcanic gas, hydrogen sulphide in particular. A calm-looking picture says nothing about whether you can go.

Cameras you can watch now: 2

All 2 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

• Sample August 2026

  Mount Kusatsu-Shirane

  Gunma · Volcano

  Holds Yugama, a strongly acidic crater lake. A sudden eruption on the Motoshirane side in 2018 led to closer monitoring.

  JMA Still, every 2 min Open the official page →

• Sample August 2026

  Manza Karafuki

  Tsumagoi, Gunma · Volcano

  A spot midway up Kusatsu-Shirane where steam vents continuously from the hillside. Raw enough that you can almost smell the sulphur.

  MOE Still, hourly Open the official page →

When to watch

Winter. Once snow lies, it melts off wherever heat is coming through, so the vents draw themselves on the white ground. The Karafuki slope is at its most tangled in this season — white snow, white steam and yellow earth mixed together.

Steam reads whiter and thicker on cold days. Looking thin in summer does not mean less of it.

This is high ground with fast-changing weather. Afternoons often go into cloud and show nothing, so morning is the safer bet.

The Meteorological Agency camera refreshes every two minutes, the Environment Ministry one hourly. Use the former if you are waiting out cloud.

If it isn't showing

Both are stills and neither shows anything at night. The Meteorological Agency one refreshes every two minutes, the Environment Ministry's Manza Karafuki once an hour. The ground is high and on many days the afternoon cloud swallows everything, so to wait for a break, use the faster of the two.

A calm-looking frame says nothing about whether you could go there. Volcanic gas, hydrogen sulphide above all, closes access to this mountain regularly.

Both cameras are in Gunma, which has a second continuously monitored volcano in Mount Asama. For slopes that steam in much the same way, see Kuju and Tsurumi in Oita and Atosanupuri on Akan-Mashu in Hokkaido.

Where to find Mount Kusatsu-Shirane

• Gunma7

Agencies publishing the cameras on this page

• Japan Meteorological Agency — volcano surveillance cameras (PDL 1.0) — Official site
• Ministry of the Environment — Internet Nature Institute (PDL 1.0) — Official site

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.