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Reuters
Reuters
Environment
By Ju-min Park and Sakura Murakami

Families seek closure for wartime mine disaster as Japan-Korea relations thaw

FILE PHOTO: South Korean relatives of workers killed in a disaster at the Chosei coal mine, bow toward an altar for the victims at a mourning ceremony, in Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, February 4, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

On a crisp February morning, four elderly Korean men bowed their heads towards Japan's Seto Inland Sea as the surf lapped near their shoes.

They were paying respects to relatives entombed in a coal mine deep beneath their feet 80 years ago - among thousands of Korean bodies scattered across Japan in an enduring symbol of a colonial past that has long blighted ties between the neighbours.

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