number of farmers in the affected areas had decreased to 374. However, these support measures were successful, and the value of agricultural production in Shimabara City and Fukae Town recovered to almost the same level as before the disaster in 2005. On the bottom of the Ariake Sea off Shimabara city, volcanic ash had accumulated 20 to 80 centimeters of mud and it has had difficulty recovering naturally. Heisei Shinzan has been surveyed and climbed several times (the general public is prohibited from climbing because of the alert area), and a detailed observation of the lava dome was carried out. Even now, active fumaroles can be observed from several places on the summit. The Shimabara Railway Line passed through the area affected by the eruptions, but was restored on some elevated reduction, including a disaster zone in 2008. Shimabaragaiko Station continued to operate, but Kazusa Station was abandoned. Mount Unzen was designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations, in 1991 as part of their International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, due to its history of violent activity and location in a densely populated area. Unzen Scientific Drilling Project (USDP) In 1999, an ambitious project began at Mount Unzen to drill deep inside the volcano and sample magma in the 1990–1995 eruption conduit. The project hoped to shed light on some fundamental questions in volcanology, such as why magma repeatedly travels in the same conduits despite the solidification of magma in them at the end of each eruption, and how it can lose enough gas on its ascent to erupt effusively rather than explosively. Drilling began with test bores to assess the viability of a deep borehole. Two holes were drilled, and deep, and cores taken from these holes were used to better determine Unzen's eruptive history. One further deep borehole was drilled to test the methods to be used in the final drilling project. The main drill began in 2003, starting from the northern flank of the volcano with a hole at an angle of 25 degrees from vertical. At greater depths, the direction of boring was tilted towards the conduit, reaching an angle of 75 degrees from vertical at a depth of . Drilling reached , the original target depth, without reaching the conduit, but in July 2004 at a depth of , the conduit was finally reached. The vertical depth below the summit was . The temperature