Hashima Island - Japan’s Rotting Metropolis
A few kids in Japan bribe local fishermen to take them out to the now abandoned Hashima Island off the coast of Nagasaki. Visitation is forbidden; perpetrators are faced with prison and deportation.
A former coal mining facility owned by Mitsubishi Motors, it was once the most densely populated place on earth, packing over 13,000 people into each square kilometre of its residential high-risers. It operated from 1887 until 1974, after which the coal industry fell into decline and the mines were shut for good. With their jobs gone and no other reason to stay in this mini urban nightmare, almost overnight the entire population fled back to the mainland, leaving most of their stuff behind to rot.
