You must have seen many ghost towns in various movies. The abandoned places are not the figment of imagination of some author sitting on his chair, burning the midnight oil. Many interesting places had to be abandoned due to reasons ranging from war, natural disaster, to depleting natural resources. Check out some of the interesting real life locations abandoned by its population.
San Zhi, Taiwan
San Zhi is an abandoned city in North Taiwan. This quant looking pod village was intended to be a luxury vacation retreat for the rich and powerful people. However, the construction process was halted after numerous fatal accidents that took place at the site. Lack of money and later the rumours that the place is haunted by the ghosts of those who died has stopped the work permanently, and the place now lies abandoned.
Gunkanjima, Japan
Hashima or Gunkanjima Island is situated at a distance of 15 km from Nagasaki in Japan. In 1890, a company “Mitsubishi” bought the island and started the project of extracting coal from the bottom of the sea. They developed the place by building many concrete apartments that accommodated the workers to protect them from the hurricanes. When petroleum replaced coal as the preferred fuel, this mine became financially unviable and had to be abandoned.
Centralia, Pennsylvania
This is another place with the history of coalmines and was incorporated as a borough in Pennsylvania in 1866. When the coal industry became unviable, most of the companies shut down by 1960. A huge underground fire started in 1962 after a weekly garbage burning exercise, which burns even now. After a series of accidents, the people were relocated and all the houses within the borough were condemned by Pennsylvania.
Craco, Italy
This medieval town is located in the region of Basilicata and the Province of Matera and can be dated back to 1060. Mass migration took place from this place between 1892 and 1922; the reasons sited being poor agricultural conditions, earthquakes, landslides and war. It now remains in shambles.
Pripyat, Ulraine
This abandoned city in northern Ukraine, Kiev Oblast was the home of most of the workers of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant at one time. After the Chernobyl disaster, the place was abandoned due to threat of radiation. The place was looted in early 21st century and remains ghost like. The place could not be inhabitable for many years to come.