Abandoned places

Abandoned places

Towns that won't welcome you

Once flourishing settlements, they are now deserted areas. They become ghost towns because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters.

PanARMENIAN.Net - Chaitén, Chile

The town was evacuated in May 2008 when the Chaitén volcano erupted for the first time in more than 9,000 years. The eruption, which commenced May 2, became more violent on May 5, throwing up a high plume of ash and sulfurous steam that rose to 31 km, from which ashfall drifted across Patagonia and over the Atlantic Ocean. On May 12, the lahar flow caused by the ongoing eruptions of the nearby Volcano forced the river to overflow dramatically. As the pyroclastic mud consumed the valley, it drove its deadly course through the evacuated town, consuming anything that stood in its way.

Kolmanskop, Namibia

Kolmanskop is a ghost town in the Namib desert in southern Namibia, 10km inland from the port town of Lüderitz. The town thrived in the early 1900s after diamonds were discovered in the sand and was once home to hundreds of German miners and local contract workers. It is now a dilapidated ghost town slowly being reclaimed by the sand. Driven by the enormous wealth of the first diamond miners, the residents built the village in the architectural style of a German town, with amenities and institutions including a hospital, ballroom, power station, school, skittle-alley, theater and sport-hall, casino, ice factory and the first x-ray-station in the southern hemisphere, as well as the first tram in Africa. The town declined after World War I when the diamond-field slowly exhausted and was ultimately abandoned in 1954. The geological forces of the desert mean that tourists now walk through houses knee-deep in sand.

Oradour-sur-Glane, France

On June 10, 1944, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in the Nazi-occupied France was destroyed, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a Nazi Waffen-SS company. Only a 47-year-old woman named Marguerite Rouffanche survived. A new village was built nearby after the war, but French president Charles de Gaulle ordered the original maintained as a permanent memorial and museum.

Äuli, Switzerland

The settlement was built by the Swiss government as a military training town for drilling close quarters combat and counterinsurgency tactics. Being unpopulated, it’s, however, fitted with cameras and patrolled regularly to keep any unwanted visitors away.

Tawergha, Libya

Tawergha is a ghost town in Libya, which was the site of intense fighting during the Libyan Civil War before its capture and ethnic cleansing by anti-Gaddafi forces in August 2011. When the Libyan army weakened, Tawergha became the first target for NTC Misratan brigades, although individuals suspected of being pro-Gaddafi had been the objective of revenge killings since February 2011. This city was once famous for its palm trees which at one point were considered the true wealth in the city. The city also produced significant amount of date fruits, including the Bersiel date, which is used as a component in ropes and other commodities.

Lukangol, South Sudan

This city in South Sudan was almost destroyed during an entire night in the ethnic wars of 2011. In a fight over the pasture lands and water, the village was burnt to the ground. Those who escaped to neighboring Pibor, were persecuted and were only saved when the government deployed 6,000 soldiers in the area.

Grand Bassam,Ivory Coast

Grand-Bassam is a town in south-eastern Ivory Coast, lying east of Abidjan. It was the French colonial capital city from 1893 to 1896, when the administration was transferred to Bingerville after a bout of yellow fever. The town has still the aura of a ghost town, since large sections have been abandoned for decades. However, in the late 1970s, it began to revive as a tourist destination and crafts center. In March 2016, the town was targeted in a terrorist attack which killed at least 16 people.

La Güera

La Güera that came into existence in 1920, is now a ghost town on the Atlantic coast at the southern tip of Western Sahara. The name comes from the Spanish word Agüera which is a ditch that carries rainwater to crops. By 2002, it had been abandoned and partially overblown by sand, inhabited only by a few fishermen and guarded by a Mauritanian military outpost, despite this not being Mauritanian territory.

Pegrema village, Russia

Little is known about the picturesque abandoned village of Pegrema in the Republic of Karelia, Russia, where wooden buildings slowly decay on the banks of Lake Onega. The houses are beautiful examples of wooden architecture of the region, despite the state of dilapidation. One building, dating from the 18th century known as the Varlaam Khutynsky chapel, remains empty but nearly intact despite the years of neglect.

Pripyat, Ukraine

The city named after the nearby Pripyat River was only inhabited for 16 years. All 45,000 residents were evacuated a few days after the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986. It has an amusement park that was opened only for a couple of hours and a big train station on the outskirts of the city.

Lusine Mkrtumova / PanARMENIAN.Net
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