Mount Unzen - Case Study

Location: Southern Japan, just outside of Nagasaki, on the Eurasian-Philippine plate boundary but the pacific plate boundary is also involved, putting addiitional pressure on the margin

Type of Margin - Destructive  (the Philippine plate is subducted under the Eurasian)

Type of Volcano - Complex Composite - 5 volcanoes overlap making eruptions more complicated

Main Hazards: Lava, Pyroclastic flow, Lahars, Mudslides, Ash Cloud

Location: Southern Japan, just outside of Nagasaki, on the Eurasian-Philippine plate boundary but the pacific plate boundary is also involved, putting addiitional pressure on the margin

Type of Margin - Destructive  (the Philippine plate is subducted under the Eurasian)

Type of Volcano - Complex Composite - 5 volcanoes overlap making eruptions more complicated

Main Hazards: Lava, Pyroclastic flow, Lahars, Mudslides, Ash Cloud

• 44 people were killed and 10 injured
• over 2500 buildings were damaged - 2000 of which were homes
• US$2.1billion in damages
• Local rivers were choked by mud and ash as well as volcanic debris due to the length of the eruption

• Seismic and volcanic monitoring due to the volcanic history of the country
• Phreatic (where magma heats the ground and surface water temperature increases) Conditions led to the evacuation of 12,000

• Continued evacuation
• monitoring for lahars and pyroclsatic flows
• Media warnings when lahars were likely to occur
• enforced a risk zone preventing snd prohibitng activities in proximity to the volcanoes
• dikes were constructed to channel mud and pyroclastic flows

• National task force set up to deal with the incident
• Unzen Scientific Drilling Project drilled into volcano to discover why the volcano erupted for so long
• unmanned machinery used to clear the debris
• reforestation projects set up in the area

The Unzen Scietific Drilling Project to research why the volcano erupted for so long and to learn way of predicting similar future events