10 Places That Don't Exist Anymore
Summary
TLDRThis video script explores locations abandoned or destroyed due to human activity or natural disasters. From the ghost town of Witten in Australia, ravaged by asbestos mining, to the perpetually burning town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, each site tells a story of environmental catastrophe. The script also recounts historical losses like the Tomb of Mausolus in Turkey and the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt. It highlights modern tragedies such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and the Chernobyl meltdown, which led to the desolation of Pripyat, Ukraine. The narrative serves as a stark reminder of the irreversible impacts of human actions on our environment and history.
Takeaways
- 🔥 The ghost town of Witten in Western Australia was abandoned due to an underground fire that started in 1962.
- 🏭 Pitcher, Oklahoma was once a leading producer of lead and zinc but became a Superfund site due to toxic waste and lead poisoning among its children.
- 🏺 The Tomb of Mausolus in Turkey was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World but was destroyed by earthquakes and repurposed by Crusader Knights.
- 🚫 Gilman, Colorado suffered from severe ecological damage due to mining operations, leading to its designation as a Superfund site and eventual abandonment.
- 🗼 The Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt stood for over a thousand years before being damaged by earthquakes and eventually submerged into the sea.
- 🏠 Wittenoom, Australia was the largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere due to blue asbestos mining, leading to its closure and abandonment.
- 🌊 The Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan shrank to a tenth of its original size due to water diversion for irrigation, causing environmental and economic devastation.
- 🔥 Centralia, Pennsylvania sits atop an underground fire that has been burning for over 60 years, leading to the town's evacuation and becoming a ghost town.
- 🏰 Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian city in Iraq, was destroyed by ISIS in 2014, erasing 3,000 years of history in a few months.
- 🌐 The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 caused by an earthquake and tsunami led to a nuclear meltdown, evacuations, and long-term decontamination efforts.
- 🏙️ Pripyat, Ukraine, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, was evacuated in 1986 after a catastrophic meltdown, leaving it as a frozen piece of Soviet history.
Q & A
What was the main cause of the underground fire in Wittenoom, Western Australia?
-The main cause of the underground fire in Wittenoom was the local officials' unwitting action back in May 1962, which led to a fire that has been burning ever since.
Why was Pitcher, Oklahoma included in the EPA's Tar Creek Superfund Site?
-Pitcher, Oklahoma was included in the EPA's Tar Creek Superfund Site due to the extensive pollution from lead and zinc mining operations, which left toxic waste piles around the area, including in children's sandboxes.
What was the consequence of the mining operations in Gilman, Colorado?
-The mining operations in Gilman, Colorado resulted in severe ecological damage, poisoning the soil and groundwater with arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc, and ultimately led to the town being deemed uninhabitable and designated a Superfund site.
What historical significance did the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus hold?
-The Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, built around 350 BC, was one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World and stood for hundreds of years until it was destroyed by earthquakes and later by Crusader Knights who used its stones to fortify their castle walls.
What event led to the evacuation of the town of Wittenoom?
-The town of Wittenoom was evacuated due to the asbestos mining which caused thousands of workers and residents to suffer from rare and often fatal diseases such as mesothelioma.
How did the Aral Sea shrink to a tenth of its original size?
-The Aral Sea shrank to a tenth of its original size due to the Soviet's water diversion projects from the 1930s, which were intended to irrigate cotton fields but led to significant water loss and a devastating reduction in the lake's size.
What was the cause of the perpetual fire beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania?
-The perpetual fire beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania started in 1962 when an intentional blaze in the town's landfill smoldered and spread through an opening into a labyrinth of abandoned coal mines beneath the town.
What led to the destruction of the ancient city of Nimrud in Iraq?
-The ancient city of Nimrud was destroyed in 2014 by the Islamic State forces who took sledgehammers and bulldozers to dismantle the buildings and attached barrels of explosives, annihilating 3,000 years of history.
What was the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the surrounding area?
-The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 caused a massive earthquake and tsunami, leading to a meltdown at the TEPCO Daiichi nuclear power plant, evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents, and a significant economic impact on Japan.
Why was the city of Pripyat completely abandoned?
-The city of Pripyat was completely abandoned following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, which involved massive explosions and the release of radioactive dust into the atmosphere.
Outlines
🏚️ Abandoned Towns: Human and Natural Impacts
This paragraph introduces a series of locations around the world that have been abandoned or significantly altered due to human activities or natural events. It starts with the story of Witten, a ghost town in Western Australia, and moves on to discuss the environmental and health catastrophes of Pitcher, Oklahoma, known for its lead and zinc mining, which led to severe pollution and health issues, resulting in its designation as a Superfund site. The paragraph also touches on the historical loss of the Tomb of Mausolus in Turkey and the ecological disaster in Gilman, Colorado, where mining operations left a legacy of arsenic and heavy metal contamination.
🗺️ Disappearance of Towns and Landmarks
This section delves into the historical and environmental factors that led to the disappearance of various towns and landmarks. It discusses the collapse of the Lighthouse of Alexandria due to earthquakes, the devastation of the Aral Sea due to poor irrigation practices, and the tragic story of Centralia, Pennsylvania, where an underground fire has been burning for over 60 years due to a landfill fire spreading into coal mines. The paragraph also covers the destruction of the ancient city of Nimrud by ISIS and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, which led to mass evacuations and long-term environmental damage.
🌳 Chernobyl and the Resilience of Nature
The final paragraph focuses on the city of Pripyat, Ukraine, which was evacuated following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Once a thriving city, it now stands as a ghost town, with nature slowly reclaiming the area. The disaster's impact on the local environment and the challenges of decontamination and recovery are highlighted, showcasing the long-term effects of such a catastrophic event. The paragraph concludes with a reflection on the resilience of nature and the enduring legacy of human-made disasters.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Ghost Town
💡Environmental Disaster
💡Superfund Site
💡Mining
💡Asbestos
💡Nuclear Disaster
💡Meltdown
💡Contamination
💡Evacuation
💡Historical Artifacts
💡Cultural Heritage
Highlights
Witten, a ghost town in Western Australia, is an example of a place significantly altered due to human activity or natural occurrences.
Pitcher, Oklahoma, once a leading producer of lead and zinc, became a Superfund site due to toxic waste and child lead poisoning.
The Tomb of Mausolus in Turkey was destroyed by earthquakes and later its stones were used to fortify castle walls.
Gilman, Colorado, suffered an ecological disaster due to mining operations that poisoned the soil and groundwater.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt was damaged by earthquakes and eventually submerged into the sea.
Witten, Australia, was the site of the largest contaminated area in the southern hemisphere due to blue asbestos mining.
The Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan shrunk significantly due to Soviet water diversion projects for cotton fields.
Centralia, Pennsylvania, is atop a perpetual underground fire that has been burning for over 60 years.
Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian city, was destroyed by ISIS forces who considered it a place of false idols.
Fukushima, Japan, experienced a nuclear disaster in 2011, leading to the evacuation of towns and a massive cleanup effort.
Pripyat, Ukraine, was abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, becoming a frozen piece of Soviet history.
The transcript highlights the lasting impact of human activity and natural disasters on various locations around the world.
Environmental negligence and lack of oversight have led to long-term consequences for the health of both people and ecosystems.
Cultural heritage sites have been irreversibly damaged by both natural disasters and human conflict.
The narrative of the transcript emphasizes the fragility of human settlements in the face of environmental and geological changes.
The transcript provides a cautionary tale about the importance of sustainable practices and respect for historical sites.
The aftermath of these disasters serves as a reminder of the need for better disaster preparedness and response strategies.
Transcripts
in the heart of Western Australia's
North lies a special but lethal place
the ghost town of Witten welcome to
watch Mojo and today we're counting down
our picks for locations on Earth that
have been abandoned significantly
altered or destroyed thanks to human
activity or natural occurrences it All
Began back in May
1962 when local officials unwittingly
sparked an underground
fire number 10 pitcher Oklahoma for half
a century the town of pitcher Oklahoma
was one of the United States's leading
producers of lead and zinc pitcher was
at the epicenter of the metal mining
boom becoming the largest exporter of
lead and zinc in the world as a result
of minimal oversight the mining
operations literally undermined the
foundations of the Town Toxic piles of
waste were left all over the area some
of which found its way into children's
sandboxes in 1983 the EPA included
pitcher as part of its massive Tar Creek
Superfund Site when mining stopped in
the70s the the Environmental Protection
Agency declared pitcher a superf fund
site a name given to areas so polluted
they're placed on the national priority
list for cleanup federal and state
efforts to mitigate the damage didn't
work and by 1994 onethird of pitcher's
children had led poisoning a mandatory
evacuation was put into effect with a
2008 tornado accelerating the town's
demise as of January 2011 only six homes
and one business remained the residents
too stubborn to leave even though the
town is gone the hometown is still here
everybody comes back to picture they was
born here or raised here or lived here
number nine tomb of mazus turkey over
the centuries each of the Seven Ancient
Wonders of the World with the notable
exception of the great pyramid at Giza
were lost to the sands of time one of
the lasts to fall was the melum at
halicarnassus or the tomb of mazus it
was built around 350 BC in modern-day
turkey the great tomb stood for hundreds
of years surviving both the invasion of
Alexander the great and two separate
pirate attacks by 1404 thanks to a
series of powerful earthquakes only the
base of the Tomb remained in 1494 an
order of Crusader Knights used the
stones of the Tomb to fortify their
castle walls number eight Gilman
Colorado once a booming zinc and Lead
mining town Gilman Colorado is now the
site of one of the worst ecological
disasters in US mining history the
mining operations poisoned the soil and
groundwater with arsenic cadmium copper
Le and zinc the Ecology of the nearby
Eagle River was decimated and the
residents of Gilman were horribly
exposed in 1984 the EPA deemed the town
uninhabitable and designated it a super
fund site the town was completely
evacuated and Abandoned and cleanup
efforts began some progress has been
made as one section of the area was
taken off the super fun list in 2023
Gilman however was never repopulated and
is now a ghost town number seven
Lighthouse of Alexandria Egypt King toy
the first first commissioned the
construction of the great Lighthouse at
Alexandria in the 3rd century bcee and
it was finished some Years Later by his
son built out of limestone and granite
it had a furnace at the top to provide
light to Sailors at Sea the lighthouse
stood for over a thousand years before
it was damaged by a series of
earthquakes after a powerful quake in
956 the lighthouse was repaired in
Muslim Style with a dome added to its
peak it would stand for a few hundred
years until two more earthquakes sent
the tower into the sea its remnants were
discovered at the bottom of the
Mediterranean in the 20th century number
six witan Australia the US isn't the
only nation that lost towns to mining
disasters the town of wit once sat 880
Mi Northeast of Perth Australia the
pilra town was built for asbestos Mine
Workers small scale mining was started
by Tycoon Lang Hancock in
1936 today it's the home to the largest
contaminated site in the southern
hemisphere blue asbest mining began in
the area in the 1930s culminating with
the construction of a company mining
town in
1947 the deadly mineral gave thousands
of workers and residents rare and often
fatal diseases such as mesothelioma
whitn was Australia's sole source of
blue asbest but by 1966 the mine stopped
being profitable and was shut down the
asbest induced health problems remained
in 2006 to 2007 the town's official
status was stripped and roads to
contaminated areas were closed we were
called to a town meeting we were told
that the government had decided that
they were going to close the town within
12 months and we would all have to leave
the town began its official closure in
2013 By 2022 the town's last two
residents departed number five Aral SE
between Kazakhstan and usbekistan for
most of recorded history the Aral Sea
was the fourth largest lake on Earth in
the 1930s the Soviets started diverting
water from from the Aral to irrigate
Cotton
Fields unfortunately the irrigation
projects weren't always sound with much
of the water getting lost by the 1960s
water diversion projects caused the lake
to shrink so
then
its reduction absolutely devastated the
local fishing economy destroying many
towns situated on its Shores by 2007 the
sea was a tenth of its original
size today the former Eastern Basin is
known as the aalum desert the region is
terribly polluted causing massive public
health issues former Secretary General
of the UN called the shrinking of the
Aral quote one of the planet's worst
environmental disasters number four
Centralia Pennsylvania Centralia
Pennsylvania once a sleepy coal town now
sits at top a Perpetual conflagration in
1962 as one story goes an attempt to
clean the town's landfill led to an
intentional Blaze they did what they did
you know they let it burn thought it was
out but it was smoldering down in the
lower depths of the garbage and the fire
spread from the garbage through an
opening in the pit that went into this
Labyrinth of abandoned coal mines
beneath the town the fire unfortunately
spread to abandoned coal shafts beneath
the town and have continued to burn for
over 60 years even still it took three
decades for the town to fully evacuate
by the late '70s having failed to
prevent the fire from spreading closer
to the town residents were warned that
Centralia was unsafe but most people
stayed put the state bought all the real
estate in the area in 1992 using eminent
domain statutes and it was all condemned
in 2013 seven residents remained they
were allowed to remain until their
deaths at which point the rights to
their land would revert to the
government it was Centralia it was just
a finally a matter of money what's going
to cost more to dig this huge barrier
and and surround the coal and just buy
everybody out and so they decided to buy
everybody out today Centralia is a ghost
town seemingly perched above a fiery
gateway to Hell number three nimrud Iraq
nimrud was an ancient Assyrian City in
Upper Mesopotamia founded over 3,000
years ago long after the fall of ancient
Assyria the ruins of the city stood in
the 1840s archaeologists began
Excavating the city discovering statues
palaces temples and a great zigurat back
in 2001 Nimrod attracted archaeologists
from around the world the cuniform
inscriptions here are some of the
earliest examples of writing anywhere
unfortunately the city sits in
modern-day Iraq and in 2014 the Islamic
State forces surrounded the ancient city
taking sledgehammers and bulldozers they
dismantle the
building finally attaching barrels of
explosives and
then it all goes up in a cloud of dust
as part of their campaign to destroy any
relics or historical artifacts deemed
unislim or idolatrous they blew up or
bulldozed the entire area the forces
destroyed 90% of the excavated City
annihilating 3,000 years of history in
just a few months for the Isis militants
this site was not something to be
cherished for its huge historical and
archaeological significance instead in
their Ultra extremist view this was was
a place of false idols and therefore to
be eradicated number two Fukushima Japan
in 2011 Fukushima prefecture in Japan
was hit by a massive earthquake
unfortunately Fukushima was home to a
nuclear power plant which suffered
tremendous damage during the earthquake
it caused a tsunami which killed more
than 15,000 people and led to a meltdown
at TECO daichi nuclear power
plant whole towns were washed off the
map leaving nothing
behind several reactors melted down
causing the first level seven nuclear
disaster since Chernobyl and one of the
worst disasters to strike Japan since
Nagasaki the containment effort was
frantic and hundreds of thousands of
residents were temporarily evacuated
public confidence in nuclear power
collapsed no
morea the triple disaster of the
earthquake tsunami and nuclear fallouts
made a huge dent in the Japanese economy
a large exclusion Zone was created in
the area in the Dozen Years After the
disaster parts of the evacuation order
were lifted bit by bit but many towns
which have lifted evacuation are still
struggling with
decontamination upwards of 5,000 workers
are here every day innovating and
orchestrating the most complicated
expensive nuclear Cleanup in history
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notifications number one pripet Ukraine
founded in 1970 pripet Ukraine was a
Boom Town of almost 50,000 by the end of
1985 it had over a dozen schools a mega
Hospital campus stores Cinemas
restaurants even an amusement park a
year later it was completely abandoned
this is the city of pripiat 2 miles from
the reactor they 30 years ago the
population was 50,000 today it is zero
pipot was the closest town to the number
four reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant which suffered a horrific
meltdown in 1986 the disaster was
sparked by massive explosions that tore
the roof off of chernobyl's reactor
number four spewing radioactive dust
into the atmosphere the entire town was
swiftly evacuated it's a piece of Soviet
history Frozen in Time literally all the
clocks are stopped at 11:55 the precise
moment that the power was cut today
Nature has reclaimed Prat with deer elk
moose boar and others returned to the
area the nuclear disaster is never over
there will be areas that will be
contaminated for thousands if not
millions of years are there other sites
of terrible disasters evacuated from our
list let us know in the comments below
it's hard to imagine just 40 years ago
this was a buling fishing port did you
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