Above is what Mount Kawara (香春岳) of Tagawa City (田川市) used to look like before Nihon Cement (now Taiheiyō Cement) shaved layer after layer off the top trying to get at its limestone.

When I first visited Tagawa some twenty years ago, the right half of Kawara-dake had already been stripped down to about a third its original height, leaving a sheer cliff of stark white limestone on the left.

Today that has also been mined. Now that's progress!