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What did the mine baths look like?
At the Miike Coal Mine Manda Pit there is a newly opened Safety Lamp Room and Bathhouse that opened to the public in fiscal 2024.
This bathhouse is the facility that was used from around 1951 (Showa 26), about 74 years after coal extraction stopped at Manda Pit, until 1997 (Heisei 9).
Because this bathhouse served the small number of miners who performed maintenance work underground, it is different from the large bathhouses from Manda Pit’s heyday.
Although smaller in scale, it served the same purpose of washing off the grime from underground work.
Because coal dust that stuck to workers during work was hard to wash off, the washing area was separate from the tubs, and
the tubs were divided into the "first bath" and an "up-bath (kakari-yu)" used after cleaning oneself thoroughly.
(For details about the large bathhouse used by about 3,500 miners at Manda Pit’s peak, guided tours at Manda Pit offer more information, so please consider using a guide.)
The Miike Coal Mine had abundant groundwater and required constant pumping.
You might think that plentiful groundwater would be suitable for filling the tubs, but the water used for bathing was tap water.
The reason was that water drawn from underground contained fine fragments of coal and other materials that posed a risk of injury, so it was not used at Manda Pit.
On Hashima (Gunkanjima), water had to be brought in by supply ship from the mainland until a submarine water pipeline opened in 1953 (Showa 28).
At that time, sea water was boiled for baths, and fresh water was reserved for the final "up-bath (kakari-yu)."
A scene in the 2024 drama "Diamonds Sleeping in the Sea" also shows miners using the bathhouse after finishing underground work, so please pay attention to that when you watch.
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