Onokoba Elementary School opened in 1882, and soon became a center of the local community where parents and neighbors would often join students in festivals and sporting events. In 1991, the building was hit by a wave of pyroclastic flow, destroying the interior completely.
The school building has been left exactly as it was after the disaster as a memorial to the damage caused by the Heisei Eruptions of 1990–1995. The majority of the destruction caused by the eruptions was due to devastating pyroclastic flow and lahars, fast-moving mudslides.