Mine Control Consoles

The curved operator console in the main mining building at Ikeshima Coal Mine holds three beige-cased CRT monitors, two orange rotary telephones and a spread of dusty keyboards. Below the screens, green-fronted cabinets carry dense rows of small square buttons, circular gauges, switches and indicator lights. Papers remain scattered across the desktop as they were left. A single fluorescent tube hangs partly behind a wooden beam overhead, and a dark water stain marks the ceiling directly above the workstation. From this room, operators managed workings that extended entirely beneath the seabed, with the deepest faces reaching about 650 metres below sea level. The coalfield stretched far beyond the island itself, with a second working area developed around the islet of Hikishima from 1974, about 4 to 5 kilometres to the west. By the 1990s, the underground roadways totalled about 96 kilometres. Ikeshima Coal Mine was developed from 1951 to 1952 and reached coal in September 1955. Commercial output began in 1959, making it the last new coal mine to open in Japan. The mine was operated by Matsushima Coal Mining Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of what is now Mitsui Matsushima Holdings. Peak production came in 1985, when more than 1.5 million tonnes were raised. The mine produced approximately 44.5 million tonnes of clean coal across its working life. The mine closed on 29 November 2001, when about 2,500 workers were dismissed. It was the closure of Japan's last large-scale underground colliery. The control room that directed it all now sits as it was left, its monitors dark, the telephones silent, the papers undisturbed.