1,800 volunteers took turns pulling a 400-ton Japanese castle with ropes and...

Hundreds of people pulled the keep of Hirosaki Castle closer to its original position A group of 1,800 volunteers gathered in northern Japan to pull a 400-tonne historic castle keep across the ground using heavy ropes, marking a major step in a decade-long restoration project. The mass effort in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, saw participants take turns pulling the three-storey timber tower back towards the stone foundation wall from which it had been moved in 2015. According to Smithsonian Magazine, organisers received about 8,000 applications for the 1,800 volunteer places, making the event four times oversubscribed. The move used a traditional Japanese engineering method known as hikiya. The technique allows entire historic buildings to be moved without taking them apart, using rollers or rails placed underneath. Teams of about 80 people pulled on 30-metre ropes attached to the keep, moving the 400-tonne structure more than two metres over two days.Historic keep moves back towards its original wallThe relocation of the Hirosaki Castle keep follows years of work to repair the castle's large stone embankment. In 2015, city officials moved the keep about 70 metres away so engineers a...