OSAKA — In late January, Mount Shinmoe, one of a cluster of volcanoes on a mountain range straddling Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures, woke back up.

Known among James Bond fans as the site of the secret rocket base in "You Only Live Twice," Mount Shinmoe had been quiet for more than half a century, but its most recent eruptions sent plumes of ash, gas and debris into the atmosphere and shattered windows 8 km away.

Volcanoes in fact can be found from Hokkaido all the way to the Ryukyu islands, making the Japanese archipelago one of the world's most volcanically active.