Hanaoka mine
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Akita Prefecture | |
| Country | Japan |
| Production | |
| Products | gold, silver, copper, Lead, Zinc |
| History | |
| Opened | 1885 |
| Owner | |
| Company | Dowa Holdings |
The Hanaoka mine (花岡鉱山? Hanaoka Kōzan) was an open-pit mine with major deposits of “black ore” (sphalerite and galena - a mixture of zinc, lead, gold, silver, and other precious metals), located in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan in the village of Hanaoka, Kitaakita District, Akita Prefecture. The area is now part of the city of Ōdate.
Mining operations began in 1885, with the mine under the control of what later became the Kajima Corporation. New deposits were discovered and exploited through the use of new technologies in the 1960s and 1970s, but by 1994 the mine was deemed to be no longer profitable, and operations were discontinued.
Dowa Holdings and several of its subsidiary companies now control the site, and operate various waste management, recycling, landfill, and soil reclamation projects. Incinerator ash contaminated with radioactive cesium created by the burning of debris from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is also stored at the site.
During World War II, a prisoner-of-war camp was established at Hanaoka Mine on December 1, 1944. The prisoners included Dutch captured in the Dutch East Indies, and many Americans and Australians after mid-May 1945. The civilians at the camp were from captured after the Battle of Wake Island, and were survivors of the Woosung POW Camp near Shanghai. They were sent to Tokyo 2D and 5B Kawasaki Shipyards in Yokohama on the Nitta Maru before having been sent to Hanaoka. Likewise, many Americans at Hanaoka came from POW camps in Taiwan on the Melbourne Maru, and the Australians had previously been at the Naoetsu POW camp in Niigata Prefecture. In violation of the Geneva Convention, these Allied POWs were assigned to the Fujita-gumi Construction Company as slave laborers. Despite the dangerous working conditions, only six prisoners died at the camp; one was killed by being crushed by a barrel of food and relief supplies dropped on the camp by an American aircraft. The camp with its remaining 245 American and 45 Australian POWs was liberated on September 15, 1945.
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