[Shocking drought photo] Lakes on the Pacific side are drying up! Boat stores scream: “We haven’t been able to operate since last November.”

A sunken village appeared!

The lake, which until just a few months ago was filled to the brim with water, has dried up, exposing the cracked bottom of the lake.

The photo above shows the changed state of Lake Tsukui (Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture), where the water level has dropped drastically due to record low rainfall. A man who runs a boat store on Lake Tsukui laments, “There is almost no water in the lake.

He laments, “Since there is almost no water in the lake, we have not been able to launch our boats since the end of November last year. This is the time of year when we get customers for wakasagi fishing, but this year’s drought has made it impossible for us to do business at all. We haven’t had many typhoons since last summer, and the low rainfall this time has caused the lake to dry up. All five boat stores on Lake Tsukui are closed. This has never happened before.

Walking downstream from the former boat ramp, we found shells and tamon nets on the ground, indicating that it used to be a lake. It was about 400 meters downstream when we finally saw water. It was where the river flowed into the weir of the dam.

Since Lake Tsukui is a dammed lake, the remains of a village that sank during the construction of the dam about 60 years ago also appeared. These include a structure made of stones, stairs, and tree roots that appear to be the remains of a shrine. They were also probably illegally dumped into the lake long ago. On the opposite shore, an old, dilapidated car was about one-third buried in the ground. There are many onlookers with cameras, hoping to see the bottom of the lake, which is rarely seen.

Lake Tsukui’s water level has dropped to 19% (as of February 4). The total reservoir capacity of the Sagami River system dams to which Lake Tsukui belongs is also less than half at 42%. An official at the Kanagawa Prefecture Sagami River System Dam Management Office said.

The water level of the lake has dropped about 20 meters from its full level. This is the first time it has been this low in winter. The cause is last year’s low rainfall. In particular, the amount of precipitation since October has been about half the normal amount.

Such droughts in dams and lakes are occurring all over Japan, especially on the Pacific Ocean side.

The Odo Dam in Kochi Prefecture has started emergency water intake after its water storage rate reached 0% for the first time, and Lake Kawaguchi in Yamanashi Prefecture has been land-locked to Rokkakudo, a hall located on a floating island, since last spring. …… According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, precipitation in January in the Tokai, Kinki, and Shikoku regions, as well as in the northern Kyushu region and southern Kyushu, was the lowest in 80 years since statistics began in 1946. Why has there been such an extreme lack of rainfall on the Pacific side of the Pacific Ocean? Masamitsu Morita, a weather forecaster, explains.

The reason is that cold air near the North Pole is moving southward in a “two-wave” pattern, splitting into two directions, and one of them is flowing into the sky over Japan. Because of the strong cold air sitting in the area, the winter pattern strengthens and a low-pressure system cannot approach the area. This is why there is heavy snow on the Sea of Japan side and little rain on the Pacific side. The United States, where another sliver of cold air has flowed in, is experiencing a major cold wave, an anomaly rarely seen on a global scale.”

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the extreme low rainfall on the Pacific side will continue throughout February. This has led to calls for water conservation in Tokyo, Aichi, Kyoto, and other prefectures.

From the February 20/27, 2026 issue of “FRIDAY