By HIROSHI ONO/ Staff Writer
December 15, 2022 at 07:10 JST
MAIZURU, Kyoto Prefecture—A gasoline depot that the Imperial Japanese Navy built on an uninhabited island here after World War I has opened to the public for the first time.
The city government intends to ensure the safety of visitors to Jajima island and develop the remains as tourism resources featuring naval history.
“We want to examine the conditions of the facility so that it will be effectively utilized in the future,” Maizuru Mayor Ryozo Tatami said.
About 40 people, selected by lottery beforehand, took part in a tour to Jajima in the east side of Maizuru Bay on Nov. 24-25.
The island was purchased by the Navy in 1916 during World War I. The fuel depot was set up in 1922, apparently to store flammable gasoline away from residential areas.
The depot consists of four tunnels extending 65 to 70 meters from the island’s eastern to western ends. The tunnels are 3.6 meters wide and 3.5 meters high.
In 2016, Maizuru was designated as a Japan Heritage site along with Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, and Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, as the four cities all hosted the Imperial Japanese Navy’s naval stations.
Jajima was included among locations as a heritage site in 2020.
Entry is restricted to the island, a state-owned property managed by the Kinki Local Finance Bureau. Jajima was only shown to nearby residents in the past.
The long triangular island, with a circumference of 650 meters, measures 260 meters north to south and 100 meters east to west.
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Visitors walk inside the No. 4 gasoline storage tunnel, whose brick ceiling is not lined with mortar, on Jajima island in Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, on Nov. 24. (Hiroshi Ono)
