Hashima Coal Mine / Gunkan-jima island
Hashima coal mining island is an artificial reclaimed island and the site of Japan’s first major
undersea coal exploitation (1890) pioneered by Mitsubishi – and host to one of the world’s
most extraordinary former mining communities. Hashima Island is located 3 km southwest of
Takashima, and it was the success of Takashima that led Mitsubishi to purchase this island – both
islands giving access to the same undersea coal deposit. Now Hashima is a ruin called “Gunkanjima”,
so called after its resemblance to the silhouette of a battleship.
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