A Landing Craft Air Cushion makes a demonstration at Sasebo Naval Base, Japan, with Sasebo city and surrounding hills visible in the background on April 5, 2025 (Sohia Bumps/U.S. Navy)
Several days of heavy rainfall may have caused a landslide at Sasebo Naval Base in southern Japan earlier this week, a base spokesman said Wednesday.
The landslide occurred at 1 p.m. Monday at Sasebo’s Akasaki Fuel Depot, spokesman Aki Nichols said by email.
“The cause is not confirmed at this time, but it is suspected to be due to recent heavy rainfall in the area,” he wrote.
No injuries due to the landslide were reported, Nichols said.
He declined to comment on the impact of the landslide on the installation’s facilities or operations, citing operational security.
A photograph posted Monday on the Nagasaki Broadcasting Co. website purported to show the landslide and a section of a buckled yellow fence where it came to rest at the naval base.
Sasebo is 19 miles south of Nagasaki on the northwestern tip of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands.
The installation includes a main base, three off-base housing areas, three fuel facilities, two ordnance facilities and a temporary staging site for air-cushion landing craft.
The area around Sasebo has been hit by heavy rainfall since late June.
More than 11 inches of rain fell between July 1 and Sunday in Sasebo city, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The city had already received 19.5 inches of rain between June 23 and 26.
The agency warned Sunday evening that rain was expected to continue through Monday and that previous rainfall had left the ground unstable, increasing the risk of landslides “even with less rainfall than usual.”
The Kyushu Defense Bureau was apprised of the landslide incident, “but we do not have details at the moment,” a bureau spokesman said by phone Wednesday. The bureau represents Japan’s Ministry of Defense in the region.
Some Japanese government officials may speak to the press only on condition of anonymity.
The base is homeport for the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, a combined Navy-Marine Corps force comprised of the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, the amphibious transport dock USS San Diego, the amphibious transport USS New Orleans and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.
The Tripoli and its complement of Marines was dispatched in March to the Middle East following the start of the war on Iran by the United States and Israel. The Tripoli until recently was on station in the Arabian Sea, but now is in the Indian Ocean, according to the USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker.
