Inunaki Tunnel · The Submerged Village

The real history is darker than the legend. Beyond the old Inunaki tunnel in Fukuoka there was a village. A dam was built; the village was submerged, its residents relocated, and graves that could not be moved were left under the water.

In 1988, five teenagers burned a young worker to death inside the old tunnel after he refused to lend them his car. The tunnel was walled shut not long afterwards.

The legend that grew around it — a village that never existed, a sign you are not supposed to read, a place that appears on no map — belongs mostly to the 1990s and to the internet. The wall is real. So is the fact that people keep going back to it.

Bureau note: the tragedy is real. The rules were written afterwards, by people who were never there.

Haunted Ruins / Fukuoka · Japan / 1988