Matsushiro Zozan Underground Bunker

During World War II, the military planned to move the governing ministries over here and was secretly building this bunker. It was dug up in a network with Mt. Maizuru at the center, where the Meteorological Agency’s seismograph station is located today, extending over 10km to Mt. Minakami and Mt. Zo. An enormous amount of money was spent, which is said to be 100 or 200 million yen in value at the time. In roughly 9 months, almost 80% of the project was completed, but the war ended before the bunker was ever used.

Although there is no document left to describe those days and the truth is unknown, Many Korean and Japanese people were said to have been forced to build the bunker. To pass on the history of tragedy in the war and hope for peace, part of the bunker has been open to the public since 1988.

You can tour nearly the 500m stretch from Nishijo Entrance (Emyoji Entrance). Even though lights and fences are set up for safety, the bunker itself is left just as crude as it was back then. There are rods for drilling rocks, the railroad ties for a trolley, some survey points which might have been used to gauge east / west and horizontal measurements, which leads you to imagine the hard labor that took place there.