Hashima Island (The Ghost Island) , Japan LOCATED off the coast of Nagasaki in Japan is an eerie island that has long been abandoned.. With its warship-like appearance, its little wonder why Hashima Island is commonly known as Gunkanjima (or Battleship Island). Its other nickname? Ghost Island. For nearly a century (from 1887 to 1974), the island was a bustling coal mining facility that housed thousands of workers. Mitsubishi bought it in 1890 and built Japans first large concrete building, at nine stories high. Hashimas annual coal production reached a peak of 410,000 tons in 1941. But it was an achievement that exacted a heavy toll in human suffering. While Japanese youth disappeared onto the battlefields of China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, the Japanese government forcibly recruited large numbers of Koreans and Chinese to fill the empty places in its factories and mines, and many of these men perished as a result of the harsh conditions and a starvation diet. Hashima was no exception. By the time the atomic bomb rattled the windows on Hashima apartment blocks and Japan surrendered to the Allied forces in August 1945, about 1,300 laborers had died on the island, some in underground accidents, others of illnesses related to exhaustion and malnutrition. Still others had chosen a quicker, less gruesome death by jumping over the sea-wall and trying in vain to swim to the mainland. Suh Jung-woo, one of the Korean laborers fortunate enough to survive the ordeal, remembered Hashima in a 1983 interview: I was one of two boys forced onto a truck in my village and taken to the government office, where several thousand other Koreans ranging in age from about fourteen to twenty had been gathered. After a night at an inn, we were taken by truck to a nearby city, then by train to the port at Pusan and ship from Pusan to Shimonoseki. About 300 members of the group, including myself, were then taken by train to Nagasaki, where we arrived the following morning. All of us were being sent to Hashima. I had relatives in Japan, not only my parents in Nagoya but also family members living in Sasebo. I thought that no matter where I was sent in Japan I would be able to escape and find shelter with them. But as soon as I saw Hashima I lost all hope. The island was surrounded by high concrete walls, and there was ocean, nothing but ocean, all around. It was crowded with concrete buildings as high as nine stories.... We Koreans were lodged in buildings on the edge of the island. Seven or eight of us were put together in a tiny room, giving each person no more than a few feet of space. The buildings were made of reinforced concrete and had mortar on the outside, but the interior was filthy and falling apart.... We were given uniforms like rice bags to wear and forced to begin work the morning after arrival. We were constantly watched and ordered around by Japanese guards, some of whom were wearing swords. The mine was deep under the sea, the workers reaching it by elevator down a long narrow shaft. The coal was carried out from a spacious underground chamber, but the digging places were so small that we had to crouch down to work. It was excruciating, exhausting labor. Gas collected in the tunnels, and the rock ceilings and walls threatened to collapse at any minute. I was convinced that I would never leave the island alive. Four or five workers in fact died every month in accidents. Modern concepts of safety were nonexistent. The corpses were cremated on Nakanoshima, the little island beside Hashima. Decaying buildings and structures found inside including a school, hospital and restaurants. The attraction has been featured as the backdrop of several films - including being the inspiration for the villains lair in the recent James Bond movie Skyfall.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 15:21:28 +0000
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