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A city lies dormant, deserted and forgotten. Submerged beneath the ocean off Yonaguni Jima is a Japanese Atlantis—an ancient city sunk by an earthquake about 2,000 years ago, according to marine geologist Masaaki Kimura.

Kimura, who is a professor at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan has been diving at the site to measure and map its formations for more than 15 years and is convinced that what he sees are the remnants of a forgotten city, once which is over 5,000 years old.

“The largest structure looks like a complicated, monolithic, stepped pyramid that rises from a depth of 25 meters [82 feet],” said Kimura, who presented his latest theories about the site at a scientific conference in June.
Whoever created the city, most of it apparently sank in one of the huge seismic events that this part of the Pacific Rim is famous for, Kimura said.

The world’s largest recorded tsunami struck Yonaguni Jima in April 1771 with an estimated height of more than 131 feet (40 meters), he noted, so such a fate might also have befallen the ancient civilization.

Kimura said he has identified ten structures off Yonaguni and a further five related structures off the main island of Okinawa. In total the ruins cover an area spanning 984 feet by 492 feet (300 meters by 150 meters).

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