The sacred tree, estimated to be about 450 years old, is seen fallen from its base at Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto’s Sakyo Ward, June 16, 2026. (Mainichi/Yuki Ohigashi)
KYOTO — A centuries-old sacred tree fell at Shimogamo Shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, at about 10 a.m. on June 16, shrine staff said.
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The tree was about 30 meters tall. Its trunk was about 3 meters around. It was a chinquapin tree in Tadasu no Mori forest inside the shrine grounds. The tree was about 450 years old. It broke at the base and fell. No one was hurt.
The shrine said it was the oldest tree on the grounds. A landscaping contractor had said the tree was decaying more and more. So the shrine had supported it with logs. The shrine believes the tree could not hold its own weight anymore, and then it fell.
A shrine public relations official said, “It’s fortunate amid misfortune that no worshippers were hurt.” The shrine plans to keep the place where the sacred tree stood as the “former sacred tree site.”
(Japanese original by Akihiro Kawakami, Tokyo City News Department)
Vocabulary
centuries-old: hundreds of years old
sacred: very important in religion
precincts: the area of a shrine or temple
contractor: a person or company that does work for money
decaying: slowly being damaged or broken
weight: how heavy something is
fortunate: to have good luck or have a good thing happen
misfortune: bad luck or a bad thing that happens
worshippers: people who come to pray
site: a place
AloJapan.com