Updated:June 2, 2023

Tono Market (Tunnel Yokocho Shopping Street)

 

 

During the Pacific War, it was encouraged to dig air raid shelters all over Japan. In Sasebo, led by administrative organs and neighborhood associations, countless numbers of shelters including family-owned ones were dug throughout the city and many people rushed into them every time the sound of air raid sirens was heard. 

Though approximately 60% of the central area was burned and many people were killed in the Sasebo Air Raid in June 1945, not a few people survived thanks to those shelters. After the war, people who lost their homes began to use them as their houses or shops. 

Tono Market is commonly called Tunnel Yokocho (tunnel shopping street) and many business owners are still using the former war-time shelters as their shops. The streetscape symbolizes Sasebo’s postwar restoration.