English news for Saturday, September 12, 2026

On September 12, 2026, at 9:30 in the morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency raised the warning level^*1 for Mount Tokachi. The agency is the Japanese government office that watches the weather and volcanoes^*2. Mount Tokachi is a volcano^*3 in Hokkaido, in the north of Japan. The agency's office in Sapporo, a city in Hokkaido, made the announcement.

The level went up from 2 to 3. At level 2, people could not go near the crater^*4. At level 3, people must not climb the mountain.

The agency says the heat inside the mountain has stayed high. Since August 17, there have been more strong earthquakes near the mountain.

If the volcano erupts^*5, big rocks can fly out of the crater. They can land as far as about 3 kilometers away. Ash^*6 and small rocks can also travel far on the wind. They can fall on the side the wind blows toward.

The agency asks people to follow the instructions of local officials and to stay out of dangerous areas. The level is now 3, and people cannot climb the mountain.

1. *1 warning level: A number that shows how dangerous a volcano is right now. A higher number means more danger.
2. *2 volcanoes: Mountains that can send out hot rock, ash, and gas from inside the earth.
3. *3 volcano: A mountain that can send out hot rock, ash, and gas from inside the earth.
4. *4 crater: The big hole at the top of a volcano.
5. *5 erupts: When a volcano sends out rock, ash, and gas.
6. *6 Ash: Very small pieces of rock, like gray dust, that come out of a volcano.

Aquamarine Fukushima, an aquarium^*1 in Japan, has announced a new kind of shrimp. The shrimp is bright red. It lives in the deep sea of the Nemuro Strait, a part of the sea in the east of Hokkaido. Hokkaido is an island in the north of Japan. The new shrimp is called homuraibaramoebi^*2.

For the past 20 years, the aquarium has been collecting animals from the deep sea in the Nemuro Strait. Local fishermen have helped with this work. The team uses shrimp traps and gill nets^*3, the same tools that fishermen use. Over the years, they have found many interesting shrimp and crabs.

In 2019 and 2022, the team collected some shrimp from a group called ibaramoebi^*4. They looked closely at the shape of the shrimp and at their genes^*5. Two of the shrimp did not match any known kind of shrimp. The aquarium then studied these two shrimp together with Dr. Tomoyuki Komai of the Chiba Prefectural Central Museum, a museum in Chiba, Japan. After this work, the shrimp was announced as a new kind.

1. *1 aquarium: a place where people can see fish and other water animals in big glass tanks
2. *2 homuraibaramoebi: the Japanese name of the new red shrimp
3. *3 gill nets: nets that stand in the water like a wall and catch fish that swim into them
4. *4 ibaramoebi: the Japanese name of a group of shrimp that look alike
5. *5 genes: the tiny parts inside a living thing that make it what it is and that it gets from its parents