Control Room Interior

Inside a surface building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a metal barrier carries a 立入禁止 sign and blocks a doorway opening onto collapsed steelwork. Broken pipes and corrugated metal are heaped outside in direct sunlight, the rusted structure visible through the wide window opening above. Debris covers the concrete floor. A water-stained wooden-panelled wall runs down the left side of the room, and three small windows on the right let in the outside light. Ikeshima Coal Mine sits on and beneath the island of Ikeshima, Nagasaki Prefecture, roughly 7 km off the Nishi-Sonogi Peninsula in the Gotō Sea. The island itself covers about 1.08 km²; the coalfield it served lay entirely under the seabed, with working levels reaching about 650 m below sea level. Surface plant, headframe, washery, shafts and the harbour were packed onto the island because there was nowhere else to put them. The first vertical shaft was completed in 1967, the second in 1981. Matsushima Coal Mining Co. began development of the Ikeshima workings in fiscal year 1952 and reached coal in September 1955. Commercial output began in 1959, making Ikeshima the last new coal mine to open in Japan. At its 1970 peak, 7,770 people lived on the island. Production peaked in 1985 at more than 1.5 million tonnes. The mine raised approximately 44.54 million tonnes of clean coal over its working life. The Ikeshima Coal Mine closed on 29 November 2001, after 42 years of production. About 2,500 employees were dismissed. A coal-mine experience programme ran from 2003, using a preserved underground gallery with former miners as guides. Nagasaki City passed an ordinance in September 2025 abolishing that facility at the end of FY2026. This photograph was made in 2026.