Haboro is one of the most famous ghost towns in the world, thanks to both national and international attention, for example an episode of the paranormal reality TV series Destination Truth – and after almost eight years of exploring abandoned places all over Japan I was finally able to get to this rather remote and surprisingly time-consuming place myself…
Haboro was founded in 1894 and grew only slowly for the first 30-something years of its existence – located at the Sea of Japan it has a humid continental climate with strong winds and an average of 5 meters of snow per year; houses along the coast almost all are protected by tall fences made of wooden boards to break the wind, maling them look like little forts. During World War II (which was longer for Japan as the country started earlier than the rest of the world…) the former suburb of Tomamae grew from a few hundred inhabitants to almost than 30000, despite the harsh conditions of its remote location – thanks to two large coal mines in the mountains rising behind the coastal town. (The Chikubetsu Mine (opened in 1940), which we’ll have a look at today, and the Haboro Mine (opened in 1935), which I’ll present in a future article.) To avoid unnecessary commutes, everything the mines needed were built: apartment buildings, a hospital, several schools – basically a Haboro II. In 1970 both mines were closed and the population decreased from 28574 to 13624 in 1975 to 10102 in 1995 to 7253 in 2017. The tendency? Still going down by a couple of dozen people per year.
Today Haboro is a sleepy little coastal town again with the usual array of supermarkets, car dealerships and even a driving school as well as two museums. Nothing out of the ordinary, but not too shabby for such a small remote town. The train line, built in 1941 as the “Coal Line Haboro” to move the coal to places it was needed, once had two stops within the city limits – Chikubetsu in the mountains and Haboro at the sea. Chikubetsu Station was closed with the mines in 1970, Haboro Station followed in 1987 when the state owned JNR was privatized as Japan Railways – and got rid of the complete line between Rumoi and Horonobe. Which means that nowadays Haboro is only accessible by car… and maybe an obscure bus line running three times a day.
Then why is Haboro so popular amongst urban explorers and ghost hunters? Because the ruins of the mining area in the mountains are easily accessible – nobody seems to care about them anymore, there are not even warning or do not enter signs. Despite the fact that pretty much all of them are death traps and mostly demolished, the Haboro ruins are strangely fascinating. We’ll return to Haboro several times in the future (not only for the second mine!) as I spent a whole day there with my buddy *Hamish*, but today I’d like to focus on the ruins of the Chikubetsu Mine.
The first thing most people see of the Chikubetsu Mine is its large concrete hopper, still sitting next to the road, just a little bit more rusty than almost 50 years ago. Much more rusty. So rusty that metal pieces keep falling off. Pointy pieces… One of them piercing right through my shoe and thick hiking socks – if I would have walked just a little bit faster the bayonet shaped spike would have gone right through my foot – and with the emptied out and partly collapsed mine hospital down the road it would have been a painful return to civilization. Last stop of the former Chikubetsu mine – the former power plant, now mostly demolished; the impressively large chimney was still standing, so were couple of other structures and walls, but overall there was little to see on that extremely windy and slightly rainy day – though still better conditions than when exploring the snowy *Horonai Coal Mine & Substation* on a previous trip to Hokkaido.
(*Like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* if you don’t want to miss the latest articles and exclusive content – and subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube* to receive a message right after a new video is online…)
nice one 😀 but over 7k inhabitants isnt that small number yet! well certainly its not nearly 30k,but still…for example village i live in have barely 700 haha
Wow, what a creepy looking place..