Just 15 kilometers from the infamous city of Nagasaki lies a real ghost island. Until 1974, Hashima was the most densely populated place on the planet, and its level of industrial development was remarkably high. But then everything stopped and froze in time.
Location of Hashima Island on the map.
An island called “cruiser”
Hashima’s second name is “Gunkanjima,” which, translated from Japanese, means “cruiser” — and it is precisely a cruiser that the island resembles in outline. It is tiny in size: from north to south its length is 480 meters, from west to east only 160, and its coastline is only about one and a half kilometers.
This is the warship to which Hashima is compared.
Until the end of the 19th century, the island was overlooked by most people: rocky and featureless, with only sparse vegetation. Its most frequent visitors were fishermen, drawn by the fine catches of fish and the shelter it offered from storms. When industry began to develop rapidly throughout Japan, and especially in nearby Nagasaki, the question of coal became more pressing than ever. And so, in 1887, the first mine was opened on Hashima. By 1890, the Mitsubishi concern had bought up the territory, and a new era began on the island. Settlement grew alongside industrial development, so that by the start of the next century the island was already a vast maze of underground tunnels. Work in the mines had always been a dangerous occupation, and when war came and Japan’s human resources began to be valued even more highly, the government started hiring migrant workers from Korea and China. The terrible working conditions and the callous disregard for others’ lives made Hashima the final refuge for many people.
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Life on Hashima during its industrial heyday.
Some of the labyrinths ran underground, and some even beneath the sea, descending to 600 meters below sea level. To reinforce the island’s edges, a massive reinforced concrete wall was built — the largest structure of this material anywhere in Japan. For 50 years, Hashima was considered the most densely populated place on the planet, with 5,259 people per km². By 1916, about 150,000 tons of coal were being mined on Hashima annually, and its permanent population was almost 3,000.
There were not only industrial buildings but even miniature plazas for the workers and their families. The Zenpukuji temple was also rebuilt on Hashima; the journey to it was real torture, full of dangers, and the road to the sanctuary was aptly nicknamed “The Ladder to Hell.” In the post-war period, a school and a hospital were built here as well. These were the last and most modern tall buildings ever erected on the island.
Hashima Island School.
Housing on this small patch of land was allocated according to a strict hierarchy. The honor of living in a one-story house fell only to the mine’s manager. All the management staff, doctors, and teachers lived in spacious, comfortable two-room apartments with bathrooms; next came the mining families in two-room apartments but without amenities; while seasonal workers and unmarried miners were crammed into one-room apartments. The island’s entire population was critically dependent on the mainland, which supplied it with water, food, and clothing.
Old landscapes of Hashima.
Mitsubishi closed its mines in 1974, when the entire coal-mining industry fell into decline. In just a few weeks, all the residents and workers left the island, leaving behind empty houses and labyrinths.
The silent heritage of UNESCO
As soon as the company and officials had left, illegal scavengers became interested in the place. The Japanese government reacted harshly to their arrival, introducing immediate deportation for anyone caught visiting the island. Because of the great interest in Hashima, in 2008 UNESCO proposed adding it to the World Heritage List. The proposal was accepted, though not until 2015. The idea of completely reconstructing the island and turning it into a large-scale museum of industrial history has been raised repeatedly. But it all depends on the astronomical budgets that reviving Hashima would require.
This is what an ordinary miner’s apartment looked like.
An impregnable monster of reinforced concrete.
Today the island remains closed to visitors, although one separate zone has been fitted out for tourists. It holds all the miners’ buildings, which have already become part of Japanese history. The excursion ship leaves Nagasaki harbor at 9:00 and 14:00; if the sea is calm, tourists can disembark on the island, otherwise the ship simply passes close to Hashima without stopping.
Trees and plants still grow where soil was brought in from Kyushu.
Another surge of interest in Hashima came after it inspired the set of the latest film about agent 007. The set, built at Pinewood Studios, apparently drew on the plans of the Japanese “battleship.” In the summer of 2013, thanks to Google Street View, you could travel even to the closed parts of the island. You can even step inside the abandoned buildings where the miners once lived. Hashima is constantly being worn away by time, so being there is genuinely dangerous.
Today, some fishermen agree to smuggle onto the island those who long to feel the spirit of the ghost island. Thanks to such explorers, you can see Hashima from the inside, with the remnants of its past greatness. More than 40 years have passed, yet the island still holds the echoes of an era when Mitsubishi built a real industrial paradise on a lifeless rock. We can only hope that this era will not crumble into dust buried on the ocean floor.
The photographs in this article come from the following sources: Source1; Source 2.