MIYAZAKI – An abandoned hotel in southwestern Japan where young people found a body after entering the devastated ruins for a test of courage remains more than a year after the body was discovered. This reporter was gradually able to uncover why large buildings with no known owners remain untouched and neglected.
It all started in the ruins of a hotel in Ebino City, Miyazaki Prefecture. At around 12:50 p.m. on April 15, 2020, two men in their twenties who came to the site from outside the prefecture called the police from the hotel ruin and said there was a body there.
An abandoned hotel where a body was found in April 2020 is seen in Ebino city, Miyazaki prefecture on August 26, 2021. (Mainichi / Shunsuke Ichimiya)
The nine-story hotel is located on National Road 268, which connects the neighboring cities of Ebino and Kobayashi. It is a long way from urban areas and is close to Camp Ebino of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. The hotel is said to have closed in 1997 at the latest. The ruins have been referred to as a “haunted place” on the internet.
Miyazaki Prefecture Ebino Police Station said the two young men entered the abandoned hotel grounds without permission and found the body of a man lying face up on a bed in a guest room on the sixth floor. The gray-haired man was about 170 to 180 centimeters tall and wore a short-sleeved T-shirt and pants. The body was later identified as an Ebino resident in the 1950s. Police believe it has been about a year since he died and in the absence of a suicide note or other lead, the man’s movements prior to his arrival at the hotel are apparently unknown.
In August 2021, when it had been more than a year since the body was discovered, this reporter visited the abandoned site and found that the glass doors to the entrance had broken and the entire building had turned yellowish-green. Peering into the hotel through broken windows at the back of the building, empty cans and relatively new masks and other items were strewn around the room, suggesting that someone had entered the house. The emergency stairs had fallen into disrepair and parts of it threatened to collapse.
Masks, empty cans, and other scattered items suggesting someone entered the property can be seen through a broken window of an abandoned hotel in Ebino City, Miyazaki Prefecture, on August 26, 2021. (Mainichi / Shunsuke Ichimiya)
Setsuko Iriki, a 72-year-old woman who lives nearby, said she saw rays of light from flashlights seep out of the windows of the hotel’s upper floors at night and heard the voices of young people for several years. The woman said she was scared and put a security lamp in front of her house. “I want them to demolish the building soon and if that is difficult I want the area cordoned off so people can’t go into the building,” she said.
According to the prefecture police, anyone entering abandoned ruins without permission could be charged with crimes such as trespassing. However, there were no entry bans in the vicinity of the hotel. The Ebino City Council’s property management division said the corporation that owns the hotel building has already disbanded and if the city erects tape or fences, the city could be held responsible for managing the facility. That is why the city administration cannot interfere so easily.
The dismantling of the hotel would pose even greater hurdles. The Special Measures Act, which came into force in 2015, has made it possible for local authorities to compulsorily dismantle and remove empty apartments that are in danger of collapsing or that are aesthetically severely impairing.
The glass door of an abandoned hotel was broken on August 26, 2021 in Ebino City, Miyazaki Prefecture, without the entrance being blocked. (Mainichi / Shunsuke Ichimiya)
However, it is difficult to actually do this. Inquiries to local governments across Japan revealed that the cost of demolishing buildings if the owner is unknown cannot be recovered and that local authorities are naturally reluctant to carry out demolition work that would require taxpayers’ money. In addition, dismantling large buildings such as hotels can take hundreds of millions of yen or around several million dollars, and some parties fear that if the misconception spreads that administrative authorities will eventually dispose of the buildings, it will cause moral harm to owners casually leaving homes.
Could anything have been done before abandoning the facility? The hotel’s owning company has already dissolved, but the names of several senior executives were entered in the commercial register. After consulting a phone book, I was able to meet a man in his seventies who was the director of the company. According to this man, the then president of the company has already passed away. Regarding the inclusion of his name under the title of director, the man said: “I only borrowed my name at the request of the President and I do not know any details myself.”
The hotel industry has suffered great damage as people were confined to their homes amid the coronavirus pandemic. It is feared that the problem of large buildings whose owners have disappeared will only get worse.
At an abandoned hotel in Ebino City, Miyazaki Prefecture, parts of an emergency staircase that is about to collapse are seen on August 26, 2021. (Mainichi / Shunsuke Ichimiya)
Chie Nozawa, professor of urban policy in the School of Political Science and Economics at Meiji University, said, “Japan had only thought about building facilities and not about closing a system to set aside the cost of demolishing buildings to lay. We are at a time when disasters are more frequent and the abandoned house problem has entered a new phase. ”
Nozawa also highlighted the need to create national guidelines so that managing authorities can confidently determine which properties should be urgently processed. She continued, “Local governments should share their knowledge and wisdom with local residents in preparation for using abandoned ruins. It is important to know the owners of abandoned homes in normal times and to contact them in the event of a disaster. ”
(Japanese original by Shunsuke Ichimiya, Miyazaki Bureau)
