Remember This Place...?

There are a few towns right here in our great country that have had some really terrible disasters befall them, and most have never recovered.

The town mentioned here, Centralia, is one I'm sure you must have heard about before. Fire has been raging underground there for many years and, as of yet, no one has any idea on how to stop it.

Centralia, Pennsylvania

In 1962, officials decided to burn a huge pile of trash at Centralia’s dump. Unfortunately, the town’s dump—and much of the town—was located on top of an abandoned coal mine. After the fire had consumed the trash, it ignited the leftover coal.

The fire began to spread throughout the mines. Carbon monoxide started to seep up from the ground, and people began losing consciousness in their homes. Sinkholes and cracks appeared throughout the town. After a 12-year-old boy fell into a burning sinkhole in the 1980s—he survived—authorities intensified their efforts to douse the fire. Nothing worked. The government realized that they could not stop the fire, and they relocated the residents.

Today, the town is nearly abandoned, and the fire still burns. The fire has consumed much of the mines: it destroyed all of the mine’s timbers and bracing. Parts of the mine could collapse at any moment, which makes the ground above dangerous to walk on. Even Centralia’s air is deadly. Sulfurous steam blows out of hundreds of fissures and holes in the mud. The gases poison the air, and they can suffocate a person.

There is a list of other toxic ghost towns, many here in the states, over on Listverse if you would like to take a look.

Coffee is gonna be out on the patio again. Soon we'll have to go inside due to the heat and the humidity.