Japanese island ghost city
Mar 28, 2010 2:59:27 GMT
Post by ilbonito on Mar 28, 2010 2:59:27 GMT
This is in response to kerouac2's thread below "Chinese ghost city". It reminded me of another ghost city, but this one quite different:
Hashima, also called Gunkanjima - the Gun Boat Island - is a rocky speck just off the coast of Nagasaki. It was named because of its fortress-like appearance, like a little Japanese Alcatraz. But it wasnt a fortress, it was a mine.
Around the beginning of the century, the island was bought by the Mitsubishi Corporation who believed that it was sitting on a rich submarine coal deposit. They were right. For almost the next one hundred years, the mine grew deeper, and longer, its tendrils stretching out under the seabed to harvest the coal that was powering Japan`s industrial expansion. By 1941 the island, less than one square kilometre, was mining 400,000 tonnes a year.
But even more remarkabe was the city that had grown up there. To accomodate the mine workers, ten storey apartment complexes were built up on the tiny rock - a highrise maze linked together by courtyards, corridors and stairs. There were schools, restaurants, gaming houses, all encircled by the protective seawall. The island became known as "Midori nashi Shima", the island without green. Amazingly, by the mid 50s, it housed almost 6000 people - the highest population density the world has ever known. And then - the coal ran out.
Mitsubishi closed the mine down, everyone left and this island city was abandoned, left to revert back to nature. The apartments began to crumble and, for the first time, in the courtyards and the barren yards, green things started to grow. Broken glass and old newspapers blew over the streets. The sea breeze whistled through the windows.
And now - thirty years later, its still exactly the same. An uninhabited ghost town on an island in the sea.
This all sounded familiar to me for some reason, and then I figured out why - I had read about it before, in my favorite novel, Ryu Murakami's brilliant "Coin Locker babies". In the book, the child protganists stumble into a deserted coal mining town, and there learn of the existence of a mysterious substance that could wipe out all life....
Ryu Murakami was born in Sasebo, a city nearby. The link was clear.
I wanted to visit, but at that time (two years ago) it was offically "closed" to visitors. After a bit of websurfing I found a few hardy souls who had hired fishing boats and made their way out, to roam at will through the weird debris of Hashima, all alone, but since then the island has reopened (to organised tours only) so tourits can now visit legally, but only under escort.
I also discovered, on a website called mitsubishi-sucks.com, that the island had a hidden history. During the 1940s it was home to hundreds of Korean slaves, shipped over to work (and often die) in the mines. In a haunting interview with one of the survivors, he said "When I saw that place, with that wall, in the middle of the sea I lost all hope. There was no escape"
Many Koreans tried, either to escape or to commit suicide, by jumping into the sea. But by the time the atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, rattling windows on Hashima, and the war was over , it was already too late for hundreds of the forced laborers.
How sad, and strange. This tiny island was once the busiest place in the world and now - dead. Just a rock, battered by the waves, riddled with echoing mineshafts and empty apartment blocks and haunted by the terrible events of its past.
Hashima, also called Gunkanjima - the Gun Boat Island - is a rocky speck just off the coast of Nagasaki. It was named because of its fortress-like appearance, like a little Japanese Alcatraz. But it wasnt a fortress, it was a mine.
Around the beginning of the century, the island was bought by the Mitsubishi Corporation who believed that it was sitting on a rich submarine coal deposit. They were right. For almost the next one hundred years, the mine grew deeper, and longer, its tendrils stretching out under the seabed to harvest the coal that was powering Japan`s industrial expansion. By 1941 the island, less than one square kilometre, was mining 400,000 tonnes a year.
But even more remarkabe was the city that had grown up there. To accomodate the mine workers, ten storey apartment complexes were built up on the tiny rock - a highrise maze linked together by courtyards, corridors and stairs. There were schools, restaurants, gaming houses, all encircled by the protective seawall. The island became known as "Midori nashi Shima", the island without green. Amazingly, by the mid 50s, it housed almost 6000 people - the highest population density the world has ever known. And then - the coal ran out.
Mitsubishi closed the mine down, everyone left and this island city was abandoned, left to revert back to nature. The apartments began to crumble and, for the first time, in the courtyards and the barren yards, green things started to grow. Broken glass and old newspapers blew over the streets. The sea breeze whistled through the windows.
And now - thirty years later, its still exactly the same. An uninhabited ghost town on an island in the sea.
This all sounded familiar to me for some reason, and then I figured out why - I had read about it before, in my favorite novel, Ryu Murakami's brilliant "Coin Locker babies". In the book, the child protganists stumble into a deserted coal mining town, and there learn of the existence of a mysterious substance that could wipe out all life....
Ryu Murakami was born in Sasebo, a city nearby. The link was clear.
I wanted to visit, but at that time (two years ago) it was offically "closed" to visitors. After a bit of websurfing I found a few hardy souls who had hired fishing boats and made their way out, to roam at will through the weird debris of Hashima, all alone, but since then the island has reopened (to organised tours only) so tourits can now visit legally, but only under escort.
I also discovered, on a website called mitsubishi-sucks.com, that the island had a hidden history. During the 1940s it was home to hundreds of Korean slaves, shipped over to work (and often die) in the mines. In a haunting interview with one of the survivors, he said "When I saw that place, with that wall, in the middle of the sea I lost all hope. There was no escape"
Many Koreans tried, either to escape or to commit suicide, by jumping into the sea. But by the time the atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, rattling windows on Hashima, and the war was over , it was already too late for hundreds of the forced laborers.
How sad, and strange. This tiny island was once the busiest place in the world and now - dead. Just a rock, battered by the waves, riddled with echoing mineshafts and empty apartment blocks and haunted by the terrible events of its past.
