https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13962561/the-spookiest-abandoned-places-world.htmlThe spookiest abandoned places from around the world
FEMAIL explored some of the creepiest places from all around the world
By Emily Lefroy For Dailymail.Com
Published: 23:47, 31 October 2024 | Updated: 00:24, 1 November 2024
There's nothing creepier than somewhere that used to be bustling and full of life now completely empty. While the world is full of abandoned pockets, the spookiest are always where life stands stuck in time, or where its inhabitants have been forced to flee in a panic. From towns whose populations gradually dwindled until they were completely void of people due to natural disasters wiping out whole cities, these structures and buildings sit still, capturing a moment in time - until someone dares explore them. With brave explorers diving into the danger, fascinating pictures and videos of these places can help tell a tale of the past. Here, FEMAIL has rounded up some of the eeriest places worldwide.
Picher, Oklahoma
Picher, Oklahoma was once a thriving mining town for lead and zinc ore until mining ceased in 1967, and it became America's most toxic town. After decades of mining, lead and iron waste began to infiltrate water and soil and the town became part of the Environmental Protection Agency's Tar Creek Superfund Site, which they documented on their website. In 1979, the town caught the attention of the state government and the EPA when the water started flowing from underground mines and into Tar Creek. There are also chat hills throughout the town, which is a hazardous byproduct of lead and zinc mining. As per the CDC, lead exposure can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, slowed growth and development, learning and behavior problems and hearing and speech problems. According to the Picher Historical Society, health and safety concerns in the town continued to grow and the federal government offered buyouts to residents and business owners, though many people initially opted to stay. However, in 2008 a tornado tore through the town resulting in six deaths and destroying more than 160 homes, with the EPA evacuating the town. The federal buyout process was completed in 2009 and municipal operations ceased not long after.
San Zhi, Taiwan
The pod houses located in San Zhi, Taiwan are abandoned and never-completed pod-shaped buildings. According to Architectuual, construction of the buildings began in 1978 with the initial intention of a vacation resort. However, the buildings were plagued with tragedies and abandoned in 1980 following investment losses and deaths during construction. There were several rumors as to why some strange deaths occurred during construction. This included the site being "haunted," as it was a burial ground for Dutch soldiers and another that suggested the misfortunes were brought upon anyone who entered due to the workers destroying a Chinese dragon statue at the entrance of the site for road widening, as noted in Rethinking The Future. The eerie pods, which look more like an abandoned alien abduction site rather than a resort, were completely demolished in 2010.
Kennecott, Alaska
When it was established in 1903, the Kennecott mine site in Alaska was a hive of activity, becoming the richest copper mine site and resulting in the nearby village, McCarthy, becoming a bustling town. However, mine abruptly closed in 1938 after its copper ran dry Kennecott suddenly became a ghost town; leaving a slew of buildings totally empty and located in an extremely remote area and surrounded by shuttered mines. After sitting totally abandoned for 30 years, the area was declared a designated National Historic Landmark in 1998, as per the National Park Service. People can visit Kennecott today, with the area featuring many interpretive exhibits at the various structures, with the town of McCarthy still home to a few residents, as per Atlas Obscura. While it's not necessarily haunted, the historic area gives visitors a glimpse into the past, and what a working mining town looked like.
Presidio Modelo in Cuba
Presido Molelo in Cuba was a model prison built between 1926 and 1928 by President-turned-Dictator Gerardo Machad. There are a total of five eerie cylindrical buildings. In each building, the cells are built around the curved walls of the five-story towers with a single, elevated watchtower in the middle. The design idea was that prisoners would always feel like they were being watched. Presidio Modelo has been closed for over 55 years and is now a national monument. It also hosts a museum in its old hospital wing, as per Atlas Obscura.
Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine
The city of Pripyat, in northern Ukraine, was evacuated after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 1986, and despite once being home to nearly 50,000 people, has not been inhabited since. Haunting snaps taken by thrill-seekers show a city stuck in time; with pictures of a once populated nursery, complete with rows of cots, mattresses and dolls still eerily in place. Other photographs show thousands of gas masks lying abandoned on the floor and theme park rides which are now being overtaken by nature. Radiation contamination later forced abandonment even outside the 18 mile zone around the plant, and the exclusion zone is expected to be in place for at least the next 20,000 years as the uranium gradually degrades.
Wittenoom, Western Australia
The country town of Wittenoom, Western Australia, once boasted a population of 20,000 people and a booming mining industry. The Wittenoom mine, which once exported blue asbestos to the world, was closed in 1966 and is blamed for causing the deaths of at least 2,000 workers and their families who breathed in the deadly fibers, with many diagnosed with mesothelioma, as type of deadly lung cancer as cited on the mesothelioma information website. The town was declared a contaminated site in 1966, and in 1978, the State Government began encouraging residents to relocate due to concerns over health risks from the presence of airborne asbestos fibers, as the noted on the government website. Now, the town has been taken off maps and is no longer marked by road signs.
Yungay, Peru
In 1970, a small town in Peru was completely erased in a matter of minutes after an earthquake struck and destabilized a glacier sitting high up on the mountains above the town, burying it in a landslide. According to the Air Mobility Museum, the earthquake claimed 74,000 people that day, and over 25,000 were declared missing. The only things that remain are four palm trees, the church steeple; a bus, twisted into the ground; and the cemetery.
Four Lost Towns of the Quabbin Reservoir, Massachusetts
In Massachusetts there are not one - but four 'lost towns' of the Quabbin Reservoir. However, these ghost towns Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott don't exist how they once did because they're now underwater after the area was turned into a reservoir. The New England website notes the Quabbin Reservoir was settled in the early 1700s, and by the 1920s had become earmarked by the Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission to help supply water to the eastern part of the state. In order to construct and expand the Quabbin Reservoir, it required evacuating the towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott. In order to do this, it required relocating people and the homes, schools, churches, and shops and exhuming and relocating 7,613 bodies from local cemeteries. Today, a large part of metropolitan Boston get their drinking water from the Quabbin Reservoir.
