Gunkanjima Hospital On Hashima Island
The tiny Japanese island of Hashima emerges from the East China Sea like an aircraft carrier. It’s no wonder it earned the Gunkanjima nickname, which means “Battleship Island” in Japanese. Located right off the Nagasaki coast, what was once home to 5,259 residents is now an isolated ghost town.
Gunkanjima began in the late 1800s as a corporate project on behalf of Mitsubishi. The company correctly wagered that Hashima was sitting on a lucrative coal deposit beneath the ocean’s surface. For nearly 100 years thereafter, the island became a dig site that yielded 400,000 tons of coal annually.
Though Japan was successfully forging ahead with industrial expansion, many of the site’s forced laborers were from Korea — and the conditions were brutal. The onset of World War II only worsened things, with an estimated 1,000 workers dying on Hashima between the 1930s and the end of the conflict.
In 1974, the faltering coal facility saw too few returns to continue its operations. Reserves not only started depleting, but petroleum was starting to replace coal. With the mines shut down for good, Hashima's civilian population started an exodus and ultimately left it abandoned, which is how it remains to this day.
It remained officially closed to any and all visitors until 2009. It was subsequently designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Historical Site in 2015. Now serving as a tourist site, visitors can either pass by on boat tours or set foot on guided tours.
Most astonishing, of course, is that Gunkanjima was a fully-functional city that had sprung up entirely around coal. Apartment complexes 10 stories high now stand abandoned, with high-rises connected by courtyards, hallways, and staircases. Schools, restaurants, and a hospital now sit in ruins.
Now, nearly 50 years after officially being abandoned, nature has started to reclaim some of Gunkanjima. Weeds and shrubbery grow amidst broken glass and crackling cement, as the Pacific breeze wafts over a former 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 is eventually reclaimed by the elements.
After touring nine of the world's creepiest abandoned hospitals and asylums, take a look at seven creepy abandoned cities from across the world. Next, check out 42 staggering photos of abandoned buildings in Detroit.
