Volcano
Suwanosejima: 1 Live Camera in Japan — an erupting island
An island that keeps erupting, refreshed every two minutes by the Japan Meteorological Agency. Haze swallows it on many days, so reopen rather than wait.
What you can see
Suwanosejima is an island that keeps erupting, and on many days it is throwing ash out of the crater. The village sits well away from that crater.
The camera holds the island from across a stretch of sea. The burn-in reads Suwanosejima (Yoriki); what is in the brackets is where the camera stands, not what it is looking at.
Worth saying first: there are plenty of days when the island is simply gone from the picture. This is the subtropics, the air carries a lot of water, and when haze sets in most of the frame is pale sky and pale sea with the island left as a faint shadow.
The camera belongs to the Japan Meteorological Agency and exists to watch for eruptions.
Cameras you can watch now: 1
All 1 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.
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Sample August 2026
Suwanosejima
Kagoshima · Volcano · Sea
An island that erupts repeatedly, throwing ash from the crater on many days. The settlement is well away from it.
When to watch
The picture is replaced every two minutes, so reopening and waiting is the way to use it.
Morning is best. Plume and steam read whiter and thicker the colder the hour, and thin out as the sun climbs. In the damp air of the afternoon you can no longer tell plume from cloud.
For season, winter. This is the subtropics and cloud is heavy all year, with the rainy season and summer the worst for visibility. The air dries and the island's outline comes out from November through March.
Night goes fully dark. The island has almost no town lighting, so between sunset and sunrise there is essentially nothing. When an eruption is running, though, the crater can show as a red glow.
Summer into autumn is a typhoon path, and it turns rough here before the Kyushu mainland does.
If it isn't showing
The four cameras in these waters are gathered in The Satsunan Volcanic Islands. The mountain putting up a plume on the mainland side is Sakurajima.
All of the agency's cameras are in JMA Volcano Watch Cameras, and the cameras of the same prefecture in Kagoshima.
Every volcano camera is in Volcano, and there is a read: What volcano cameras are looking at.
Where to find Suwanosejima
Agencies publishing the cameras on this page
- Japan Meteorological Agency — volcano surveillance cameras (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.