Afterglow of a coal mining town Coal mining houses that look like art /Walk around the island village East China Sea Ikeshima Part2 (Nagasaki Prefecture)
The island is located 7 km from the former Sotome-cho Shiho Kaiyaku area on the Nishisonogi Peninsula. It is the last coal mining island in Kyushu that continued to operate until the end. The highest point is Shihoyama at 115m above sea level, and most of the land is a plateau at about 80m above sea level, which together with the low-lying land around the port and traditional villages serves as a place for people to live. In the past, it was a half-farming, half-fishing island, where many people lived as migrant workers. The Matsushima Coal Mine began development in 1952 and began operations in 1959, producing high-quality coking coal, and continued to operate for 42 years until closing in 2001. Before its development, the current Ikejima Port was a pond called ``Mirror Pond'' surrounded by natural sandbars, which is where the island's name comes from. During the development of the coal mine, part of the sandbar was blown up and connected to the sea.
In 2015, I visited the island, which had been closed for 14 years. When viewed from the quay of the Nishisonogi Peninsula, you can see the white buildings built on the plateau, creating the illusion that there are hotels in a resort area lined up. However, as you approach by boat, you realize that the entire island is a mining area. Taking advantage of the topography of the slope of the plateau facing the port, a gigantic mining facility is attached to the site where raw coal is excavated and the raw coal produced is loaded onto ships. A coal mining town has been built on top of a hill shaped like an upside down wash basin. At its peak, about 8,000 people lived there. Because it was developed after the war, modern reinforced concrete houses, hospitals, schools, meeting halls, supermarkets, and recreational facilities were systematically built there.
On the other hand, villages that existed before the development still exist in the V-shaped valley below the hill on the north side of the island, and an entertainment district that cannot be built in a planned manner is encroaching on the existing villages, connecting the coal mining town on the hill and the port. The pattern formed. This seems to be the same phenomenon as the formation of entertainment districts on the outskirts of New Town Uya factory towns.
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