8 Striking Lost Cities and Structures Reclaimed by Nature
7. Okunoshima, Japan
Okunoshima island in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. It was used for the production of the Japanese Imperial Army’s mustard gas weapons in the 1930s and ’40s. It’s now known as Usagi Jima (‘Rabbit Island’) because of the wild rabbits that roam the island today.
Image Credit: Aflo Co. Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo
Today, the island of Okunoshima in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea is better known as Usagi Jima, or ‘Rabbit Island’. Bizarrely, the small isle is home to hundreds of wild rabbits who populate its overgrown buildings. It’s not known how the first rabbits got there – one theory suggests a group of visiting schoolchildren released them in the early 1970s – but the furry inhabitants have made Usagi Jima a tourist hotspot in recent years.
But Usagi Jima wasn’t always such an adorable place. During World War Two, the Japanese Imperial Army used the island as a manufacturing centre for the production of mustard gas and other poisonous weapons. The facility was kept top secret, so much so that the island was eradicated from official Japanese maps of the Seto Inland Sea.
Okunoshima island in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. It was used for the production of the Japanese Imperial Army’s mustard gas weapons in the 1930s and ’40s. It’s now known as Usagi Jima (‘Rabbit Island’) because of the wild rabbits that roam the island today.
Image Credit: Aflo Co. Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo
Today, the island of Okunoshima in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea is better known as Usagi Jima, or ‘Rabbit Island’. Bizarrely, the small isle is home to hundreds of wild rabbits who populate its overgrown buildings. It’s not known how the first rabbits got there – one theory suggests a group of visiting schoolchildren released them in the early 1970s – but the furry inhabitants have made Usagi Jima a tourist hotspot in recent years.
But Usagi Jima wasn’t always such an adorable place. During World War Two, the Japanese Imperial Army used the island as a manufacturing centre for the production of mustard gas and other poisonous weapons. The facility was kept top secret, so much so that the island was eradicated from official Japanese maps of the Seto Inland Sea.
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12 May 2023
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