A total of 39 students；29 students from four high schools in Kumamoto city, 6 teachers, 2 instructors, and 2 members of the Foundation, participated in the joint “groundwater study seminar” on Sunday, July 21, 2019. As the curriculum in the morning, we had a lecture on ” The Mechanisms of 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake and its Disasters” from Prof. Matsuda of Kumamoto University in the seminar room on the second floor of the Higo Bank Kumamoto Ekimae Branch.

After the lecture, we did the excursion by a large bus and car. After having lunch at the closed Tateno Elementary School, we visited the Tateno Dam construction site.

According to Professor Matsuda’s explanation, if we have the 6.26 flood(in 1953)-scale precipitation, the expected flow rate (3,400 tons / second) of Shirakawa will be insufficient even after this dam construction, which is over the dam capacity by 1,000 tons / second.

At the observatory in Minami-Aso Village, there was a question from Associate Professor Torii (Kumamoto University), “Where do you intend to build a house in this area?” He tells us about a story that people involved in a steam explosion even in a hot spring area (Many things have two sides).

Finally, we visited the Futagawa Fault Zone in Dozono, Mashiki town. This area has an old story of the large snake who lives in lotus root field and becomes the origin of the repeated earthquakes. To visit and see the place explained in the morning lecture in the afternoon, we deepened our understandings and it became a very meaningful seminar.