Hasima Island, Japan. Abandoned city-Hasima Island

Throughout history, mankind has built a huge number of cities and majestic structures, which later turned out to be abandoned. One of these places is the island city of Hasima. For fifty years this land was the most populous on the whole planet: here literally everything was swarming with people, and life was a key. However, the situation has changed: hashima Island has been abandoned for decades. What happened to him? Why is there no one else lives there?

About the island

The last local resident of Hasima on the deck of a motor ship leaving for Nagasaki set foot on April 20, 1974. Since then, in the high-rise buildings, built at the dawn of the twentieth century, only the rare gulls live ...

The island of Hasim, legends about which today go around the world, is in the south of Japan, in the East China Sea, fifteen kilometers from Nagasaki. Its name from Japanese is translated as "border island", also Hasim is called Gunkandzima - "island-battleship". The fact is that even in the 1920s journalists of the local newspaper noticed that Hasim by the silhouette resembles a linear huge ship "Tosa", which at that time was built by the Mitsubishi corporation at the shipyard in Nagasaki. And although the idea to make a battleship the flagship of the Japanese Navy was not lucky enough to come true, the "ship's" nickname firmly attached to the island.

However, Hasim did not always look so impressive. Until the end of the nineteenth century it was one of the many rocky islands in the vicinity of Nagasaki, poorly suited to normal life and occasionally visited only by local birds and fishermen.

Changes

Everything changed during the 1880s. Japan then experienced industrialization, in which coal became the most valuable resource. Alternative sources of raw materials, capable of providing the rapidly developing metallurgical branch of Nagasaki, were mastered on the island of Takashima adjacent to Hasimoy. The success of the mines of Takashima contributed to the fact that on Khasim soon, in 1887, the Fukahori family clan founded the first mine. In 1890, the island was bought by the concern "Mitsubishi", and the rapid development of its natural resources began.

As time went by, the country needed more coal ... The Mitsubishi Company, which has almost unlimited financial resources, has developed a project on underwater fossil fuel extraction on Hasim. In 1895 there was opened a new mine, which has a depth of 199 meters, and in 1898 - another. Ultimately, under the island and the sea surrounding it, a real labyrinth of underwater and underground excavations depths up to six hundred meters below sea level was formed.

Building

The concern "Mitsubishi" extracted from the mines was used to increase the territory of Hasim. A plan was drawn up for the construction of an entire city on the island to accommodate miners and personnel. This was due to the desire to reduce costs, because you had to deliver working shifts from Nagasaki daily on the sea.

So, as a result of "reconquering" the area near the Pacific Ocean, Hasim Island increased to 6.3 hectares. Length from west to east was 160 meters, and from north to south - 480 meters. The company Mitsubishi in 1907 surrounded the territory with a reinforced concrete wall, which served as an obstacle to the erosion of the land by frequent typhoons and sea.

The large-scale construction of Hasim began in 1916, when 150,000 tons of coal were mined there, and the population was 3,000 people. For 58 years the concern has built here 30 multi-storey houses, schools, temples, a kindergarten, a hospital, a club for miners, swimming pools, a cinema and other facilities. There were only 25 stores. Finally, the silhouette of the island began to resemble the battleship "Tosa", and Hasim received his nickname.

Residential buildings

The first major construction on Hasim was the so-called Glover House, allegedly designed by Scottish engineer Thomas Glover. It was put into operation in 1916. The dwelling house for miners was a seven-story building with a roof garden and a shop on the ground floor and was the first reinforced concrete object of this size in Japan. Two years later, an even larger Nikkyu residential complex was built in the center of the island. In fact, Hasim Island (photos of houses can be seen in the article) has become a testing ground for new construction materials, which made it possible to build objects of previously unimaginable proportions.

In a very limited territory, people tried to use any free space reasonably. Between the buildings in small courtyards, small public gardens were organized to rest residents. This is now Hasim - an island-sign on which no one lives, but at that time it was densely populated. The construction of houses did not stop even during the Second World War, although it was frozen in other parts of the country. And this was the explanation: the belligerent empire required fuel.

War time

One of the cult buildings on the island is the "Stairway to Hell" - a seemingly endless ascent leading to the Senpukuji temple. It is not known what still seemed to the residents of Hasim more "infernal" - the overcoming of hundreds of steep steps or the descent into the labyrinths of narrow urban streets, often devoid of sunlight. By the way, people who inhabited the island of Hasim (Japan) were taken seriously to the temples, because mining work is a very dangerous occupation. During the war, many miners were drafted into the army, the shortage of the workforce, Mitsubishi, was filled by Korean and Chinese migrant workers. Victims of half staring existence and merciless exploitation in the mines were thousands of people: some died of disease and exhaustion, others died in the face. Sometimes people even rushed desperately from the island wall in a vain attempt to swim to the "big earth".

Recovery

After the war, the Japanese economy began a tumultuous recovery. The 1950s became "golden" for Hashima: the Mitsubishi company began to conduct a more civilized business, in the mining town they opened a school and a hospital. In 1959 the population reached a peak. On 6.3 hectares of land, of which only 60 percent were livable, 5259 people were huddled. Hasim's Island at that time did not have a single competitor in the world for such an indicator as "population density": there were 1391 people per hectare. Tourists, who today arrive with an excursion to the abandoned island of Hasima, it's hard to believe that some 55 years ago residential quarters were literally packed with people.

Movement by "battleship"

Of course, there were no cars on the island. And why do they, if, as the locals say, to get from one end of Hasima to another, it was faster than smoking a cigarette? In rainy weather, even umbrellas were not required here: the intricate labyrinths of covered galleries, corridors and stairs connected almost all the buildings, so, by and large, people did not have to go out into the open air at all.

Hierarchy

Hasim's island was a place where a strict social hierarchy reigned. It could not be better reflected in the distribution of housing. So, the manager of the mine "Mitsubishi" occupied the only one-story mansion on the island, built on top of the rock. Doctors, managers, teachers lived in separate houses in two-room, rather spacious apartments with personal kitchen and a bathroom. The families of miners were allocated two-room apartments of 20 square meters, but without their own kitchen, shower and toilet - these facilities were shared "on the floor." Lone miners, as well as seasonal workers lived in rooms of 10 square meters in houses built here in the early 20th century.

Concern "Mitsubishi" established on Hasim the so-called private-ownership dictatorship. The company, on the one hand, gave miners jobs, provided salaries, housing, and on the other - forcibly attracted people to public works: cleaning the territory and premises in buildings.

Dependence on the "big earth"

The miners gave Japan the coal they needed, and their existence depended entirely on the supply of clothing, products, and even water from the "big earth". Here, until the 1960s, there were not even plants, until in 1963 the soil was brought to Khasim from the island of Kyushu , which made it possible to smash the gardens on the roofs of buildings and organize small gardens and public gardens on few free areas. Only then the inhabitants of the "battleship" were able to cultivate at least some vegetables.

Hasima - Ghost Island

Back in the early 1960's. It seemed that the island was waiting for a cloudless future. But as a result of the cheapening of oil at the end of the decade, it became increasingly unprofitable to mine coal. Throughout the country, the mines were closed, so a small islet in the East China Sea eventually became a victim of the reorientation of the Japanese to use "black gold." In early 1974, the concern Mitsubishi announced the elimination of mines in Hasim, in March the school was closed. The last resident left the "battleship" on April 20. Since then, the abandoned city-Hasim Island, which was rebuilt for 87 years, is irreversibly destroyed. Today it serves as a kind of historical monument of Japanese society.

Tourist object

For a long time Hasim was closed to tourists, since the buildings erected in the first half of the 20th century were very actively degraded. But since 2009, the authorities of the country have begun to admit to the island all comers. For visitors in a safe part of the "battleship" was organized a special walking route.

And not so long ago Hasim's island attracted even more attention. The wave of interest arose after the last part of the epic movie was released on the adventures of James Bond, the British agent 007. The lair of Raul Silva, the main villain of the film "Coordinates Skyfoll", filmed in 2012, was apparently copied from Hasim, in spite of the fact that the picture was filmed in Pavilions studio Pinewood.

Virtual walk

Today, individual enthusiasts make proposals for the reconstruction of the entire island, because its tourist potential is truly huge. They want to organize an open-air museum here and include Hasim in the UNESCO list. However, to restore dozens of dilapidated buildings, large financial costs are required, and the budget for these purposes is even difficult to predict.

Nevertheless, now anyone can wander through the mazes of "battleship" without leaving home. Google Street View in July 2013 surveyed the island, and now the inhabitants of the Earth can see not only the quarters of Hasima that are inaccessible to tourists now, but also to visit the apartments of miners, abandoned buildings, view household items and things thrown by them on departure.

Hasim's island is a harsh symbol of the birth of Japan 's large industry, which at the same time demonstrates that even under the rising sun, nothing lasts forever.