Monitors and Consoles

The control room in the main mining building at Ikeshima Coal Mine sits largely as it was left. Twelve CRT monitors bank across the central console, nine set into the panel face, three stacked in a row above, their screens dark. On a shelf to the right, binders labelled 電力使用月報 (Electricity Usage Monthly Report) and 檢針明經書 stand where they were last set down, a blue and white aerosol can nearby on the floor. An overturned office chair, black leather back and wooden armrests, lies among the debris. At the far left, daylight enters through a tall window; a dark object stands almost silhouetted against the glass. An exposed rectangular air duct runs the full length of the ceiling. Ikeshima Coal Mine, operated by Matsushima Coal Mining, began commercial output in 1959, the last new coal mine to open in Japan. The mine's worked area lay entirely beneath the seabed, with the deepest workings reaching about 650 metres below sea level. By the 1990s the underground roadways totalled about 96 kilometres. Peak production came in 1985, when more than 1.5 million tonnes of coal were raised. Over roughly 50 years from the mine's 1952 development to its 2001 closure, the operation produced approximately 44.5 million tonnes of clean coal. The mine closed on 29 November 2001, with about 2,500 employees dismissed. It was the closure of Japan's last large-scale underground colliery. The control room's monitors and binders record the ordinary administrative texture of a working mine, monthly electricity reports, metering records, left in place on the day the last shift came up.