Lava Covered Village (Unzen Preservation Park)

This part of the tour left me speechless, with moments of hair tingling thoughts in yet again, realizing that when nature strikes, we are almost always rendered helpless.

About 17 years ago, this preservation park was a peaceful, quite upscale village.

That was until Nature decided to remind the people if who was really in control.

When Mount Unzen Fugendake erupted on November 17, 1990 after about 178 years of being dormant, 40 people died, 3 were missing, 9 were injured, and 179 houses were damaged.

The government decided to preserve the area to remind the people that we are always, always at the mercy of nature and of Someone far more powerful than us.

FOR THE FUTURE. That was written on a white paper which was hanging among the origami wreaths in memory of those who died during the 1990 disaster. FOR THE FUTURE-----for me, these are very raw words which remind us that what we get from tragedies like this are not just scars and wounds of great loss but more than these, what we get are lessons on humility and resilience which are of great use in forging towards the future.