Hashima Island in Japan is a completely abandoned concrete fortress rising out of the ocean that used to be the most densely populated place on earth before the local coal mines abruptly shut down in the 1970s.

A closer look

Hashima Island in Japan is a completely abandoned concrete fortress rising out of the ocean that used to be the most densely populated place on earth before the local coal mines abruptly shut down in the 1970s. Leaving behind televisions, toys, and rotting furniture, the entire population essentially vanished overnight, leaving the brutalist apartment blocks to slowly crumble into a terrifying, apocalyptic nightmare that famously served as the villain's lair in the James Bond film Skyfall. Today, eager tourists strap on hard hats and pay good money to wander through the dilapidated, asbestos-filled ruins of shattered domestic life, indulging their morbid fascination with societal collapse. It is a fantastic reminder that no matter how permanently we try to build our concrete empires, nature will inevitably reclaim our garbage the second the economic profit margins finally dry up