In Yubari City, Hokkaido, the ruins of a town that once prospered from coal mining and was submerged by a dam still appear during droughts.
It was created in 1929 when the northern part of the Mitsubishi Oyubari Coal Mine was developed,
The Kashima area is a coal mining village that was created when the northern part of the Mitsubishi Oyubari Coal Mine was developed in 1929.
The Oyubari Coal Mine itself was originally located on the south side of the current center of the city,
However, it gradually moved to the north due to deteriorating geological conditions in the late Taisho period (1912-1926).
It was completed in the Showa period.
At the height of the coal mining era, 20,000 people lived in the Kashima area,
There were 2 elementary schools, 1 junior high school, and 1 high school in the city.
However, the number of people living in the area has since increased,
As time went by and the Oyubari Coal Mine was closed in 1973, the people quickly moved away,
In 1998, all the houses in the Kashima area were relocated due to the Shuparo Dam Project.
In 2014, the dam was completed and test flooding began in March,
Almost the entire Kashima area, including the Sangen Bridge, was submerged and remains to this day.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)