Yoshimitsu Miyawaki, 88, survived the dust explosion that killed 458 people at the former Mitsui Miike coal mine in Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, on November 9, 1963. He now spends his days painting the mine, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.
Miyawaki, a former mine electrician who lives in Omuta, is still troubled by the aftereffects of carbon monoxide poisoning. He said he wants younger people who never knew the mine to understand what went on underground, and hopes the paintings will carry the memory forward.
He went to mining school after finishing middle school and became an electrician at 18. He also took part in the Miike Struggle, the bitter labor dispute of 1959 and 1960, as a union member.
“A colleague fell in front of me”
The 1963 explosion hit as he was heading back up from the tunnels. The lights went out, debris swirled through the shaft and a colleague dropped in front of him, he said. He carried one man and then lost consciousness himself.
“I saw the Sanzu River, where black water flows. I heard a voice calling, ‘Hey,’”Yoshimitsu Miyawaki, survivor of the 1963 Miike mine explosion
A rescue team pulled him out and he survived. The Sanzu River is the river the dead are said to cross in Japanese Buddhist tradition.
Miyawaki's account of what he saw and heard after he collapsed continues past the point where the published article becomes available to subscribers.