Coal was discovered in this area by a farmer in 1469; however, commercial scale exploitation did not begin until 1721, when the karō of Miike Domain received permission to open a mine.

In 188, when the mine was privatized, Mitsui won a fierce bidding competition against the Mitsubishi zaibatsu for ownership.

Approximately 1,735 American and Allied prisoners were used as slave labor to mine coal and work in a Mitsui zinc foundry.

[9] Ultimately, the protesting miners were defeated, and returned to work without achieving their demands, dealing a significant blow to the Japanese labor movement as a whole.

Electricity and telephone communication were lost after the explosion, and initially, no attempts to rescue the workers were made by the company, which stated that it was too risky due to unclear conditions within the mine.

[4] Of the 939 workers that survived, 839 suffered from serious carbon monoxide poisoning, which resulted in severe, permanent brain damage.

[11][4] In July 1967, 66 housewives from the Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Patients Family Association staged a sit-in at the bottom of the Mikawa mine from the 14th to the 20th of the same month to protest failure of the company to provide compensation.

Due to currency exchange rates, compensation claims for mining accidents, rising labor costs, etc., it was no longer possible to compete without government subsidies, which were scheduled to be discontinued from 2001.

On July 22, 2021, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee found that Japan had not fulfilled its pledge and they were asked to come up with a new plan by December 2021.