The Abandoned Hospital On Hashima Island
The tiny Japanese island of Hashima is located about nine miles from the city of Nagasaki. The unique shape of the island resembles a battleship, so it’s also known as Gunkanjima (or Battleship Island). Though it was once home to 5,259 residents, it’s now an isolated ghost town.
Gunkanjima began rapidly growing in the late 1800s as a corporate project on behalf of Mitsubishi. The company took advantage of the coal on Hashima over the decades, eventually producing 400,000 tons of coal per year by 1941.
To accommodate the miners, a city was built on the island, which included apartment complexes, a school for the miners’ children, and a hospital.
Though Hashima quickly became a symbol of Japan's industrial expansion, there was also a dark history of forced labor on the island, especially during World War II, when Japanese officials exploited Korean civilians and Chinese prisoners of war by forcing them to work on Hashima. Conditions were so brutal that an estimated 1,000 workers died on the island during the conflict.
By the 1960s, coal mines across the country started shutting down as reserves began depleting and petroleum started to replace coal. In 1974, Hashima's mines were closed down for good, and with that, the civilian population quickly left, leaving the island abandoned.
It remained officially closed to visitors until 2009. It was subsequently designated a UNESCO World Heritage Historical Site in 2015. Now serving as a tourist destination, the island welcomes visitors on guided tours.
Most astonishing, of course, is that Hashima Island included a fully-functional city that had sprung up entirely around coal. Apartment complexes, school classrooms, and its hospital now lay in ruins.
Though many of the buildings have been restored, nature has reclaimed some of Gunkanjima. Weeds and shrubbery grow among broken glass and crackling cement, as the ocean breeze wafts over the city and its hospital.
Ultimately, it serves as a perfect bookend to our list of nine abandoned hospitals — as every single one of them not molded into a museum or repurposed into something else is eventually reclaimed by the elements.
After exploring nine of the world's creepiest abandoned hospitals, take a look at seven abandoned cities from across the world. Then, check out these photos of abandoned buildings in Detroit.
