A Rare Underground Spot in Saitama

Did you know there is a rare underground sightseeing spot in otherwise less magnetic prefecture, Saitama? There is, folks - one that even foreign tourists take time to visit.

A Parthenon? Not really, but it sure looks like it. Huge pillars sticking up in a mysterious space...  It's the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, the largest of its kind in the world already very well known abroad.

The channel is a lifeline for the metropolitan area in that overflown rivers find their way through the channel into the Edo River. Visitors need only to make reservations to look around inside the underground channel during weekdays. Many movie films have been made here and TV dramas as well.

In fact this coming November 11, Saturday, the channel is open without reservations. November 14 happens to be the Saitama Day and visitors can access otherwise concealed pumps, impellers, etc, and take pictures as you please. Up on the ground a festival "Sairyu no Kawamatsuri" organized by local citizens of Kasukabe treats visitors to plenty of fun.

The Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel is situated in Kasukabe, Saitama, and, as aforementioned, the world's largest underground flood water diversion facility. The project started in 1992 and was completed 2009.

It's 65 meters high and 32, across, 50 meters deep, linked by 6.4 km of tunnels. The pumps are capable of pumping out 200 tons of water, or equivalent of a standard 25m-pool-full of water per second.

Last year, Australia's ABC TV covered the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel in its science show "Catalyst" titled "Tokyo Flood Prevention".

Earlier in 2006, the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel was used as a location for a Land Rover television commercial print campaign.

Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel is free for all to visit, but tours are done only in Japanese so that foreign tourists had better bring a translator along.