Mae-channel live cams

Mae-channel is a small media company based in the Asama area that streams the volcano continuously. It is a private operator, not an observatory: it provides the picture, while the alert level, the bulletins and the eruption record all come from the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The close view from the other side

Its camera stands at Kita-Karuizawa, on the north flank, and it is zoomed in on the summit crater rather than framing the whole mountain. That makes it the complement to the town hall camera on the south side: one gives the shape of the volcano and the weather around it, the other shows what the crater itself is doing. Between them the two cover opposite sides, which is genuinely useful on a volcano — the wind decides which way a plume goes, and a summit that looks clear from one side can be venting steam out of view from the other.

Why Asama is watched this closely

Asama has erupted more than fifty times in recorded history. The Tenmei eruption of 1783 sent pyroclastic flows and a lava flow down the north side, killed well over a thousand people and left the field of black rock now known as Onioshidashi, which visitors walk across today. Smaller ash eruptions have continued into recent decades, which is why a mountain with holiday towns on both flanks carries this much monitoring.