9. FUKUSHIMA
On a Friday afternoon in March 2011,
the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan struck off the country's eastern coast.
The earthquake triggered a gigantic tsunami wave that cascaded over the defenses and
flooded the reactors at the Fukushima Power Plant, causing what is known as Japan’s triple disaster.
Radiation leaked from the plant, forcing over 150,000 people to evacuate the area.
It became known as nothing more than an abandoned wasteland. It’s a desolate,
post-apocalyptic world that has rusting playgrounds and cars and motorcycles being
ravished by overgrown vegetation. The cars appear to be in neat rows, looking like a graveyard!
If you visit Fukushima today, you’ll find stacks of televisions, fully stocked stores, an abandoned
amusement park, and a perfectly set dinner table that appears to have been left behind right in the
middle of dinner. It’s completely empty aside from the radioactive spiders and a few other animals.
Residents and reconstruction workers who temporarily returned to Fukushima
experienced massive health issues, such as infection from tetanus and animal bites, due to
not being educated about the risks that come with Japan’s native fauna and restoration activities.
Before a safe return can be considered, the health issues having to do with wilderness overgrowth
must be addressed. 8. TEXOLA
The arrival of Route 66 was very exciting as it brought hope and promise to many small towns in
America. Since Route 66 is a major interstate highway, its construction resulted in bypassing
these small towns which resulted in their struggle and eventually their abandonment.
Texola, Oklahoma, was no exception. It was a farm town before the arrival of Route 66,
but once the tourists started flooding in, it became the cornerstone of the local economy.
Even during its peak, Texola only had about 600 residents. But due to the Dust Bowl in
the 1930s and highway I-40 in the 1970s, the population of Texola plummeted to below
100 as its residents moved to other cities in hopes of building new and better lives.
Alongside the handful of people, Texola holds one gas station, a one-cell jail
with a lone truck parked out front, and a couple creepy bars and empty restaurants. It has one
operation restaurant known as the Tumbleweed Grill and Country Store, sitting along Route 66.
It’s not the only town that gives the apocalypse wasteland feelings though.
It has been said, driving down route 66 and passing through
these seemingly abandoned towns is like driving through time.
There is one town called Jericho Gap, TX, that's infamously known as the place
where travelers got their car stuck in the mud. Locals love this because it brought
business to the dying area after its road was shut down and rerouted to route 66.
7. SMALLPOX HOSPITAL
Roosevelt Island offers some of the most beautiful views of New York City,
but it also holds a sinister secret from the past. Preserved on the small island
are the remains of the Renwick Smallpox Hospital, a creepy castle-like structure.
This now-abandoned institution first opened its doors to patients in 1986.
The island was selected as a strategic location for this particular hospital
because it acted as a natural quarantine, separating the numerous sick individuals
who came through its doors from the rest of New York City’s population.
The smallpox hospital only had 100 beds, yet its mortality rate was 14,000 people
by the time it closed. Given that the Renwick Smallpox hospital was only open for 30 years,
this is beyond disturbing. Given the time, the diseases that spread throughout the hospital
happened deeply and quickly due to a lack of knowledge of the illnesses and how to
treat them. And dealing with the aftermath of the deaths was anything but moral. The workers simply
piled the bodies into a heap, burned them, and they were disposed of in the East River.
Due to the graphic nature of the smallpox hospital,
visitors believe paranormal activity looms throughout the structure such as dark shadow
figures and light anomalies lurking around the ruins. Some locals believe the spirits
belong to past patients who have unfinished business or are confused about how to move on.
Though the fragile structure is now abandoned, it can still be safely accessed by skylift or tram
and can be viewed from a safe distance. 6. HOME OF TRUTH
Home of Truth was built in 1933 in southeast Utah as a religious colony for a post-apocalyptic
world. Marie Ogden, a wealthy widow, believed that the world was ending. She thought everywhere and
everything would perish except for a plot of land within Dry Valley, Utah.
It was there she believed Christ was going to have his second coming.
When the commune first started, it had 22 members but eventually grew to 100
members. Ogden was a self-proclaimed spiritualist,
and she performed medium readings on her typewriter. She called this technique,
Automatic Writing, and was convinced that she could communicate with angels and spirits.
Residents were required to follow a strict code of conduct. They were told
they had to turn in all their personal belongings in exchange for clothing,
shelter, and food. They were also given a no alcohol or tobacco rule.
Their main industries were farming and prospecting for gold on a small scale,
but they didn't have much luck. The commune had a very basic and simple living principle,
so living without indoor plumbing or electricity was no problem for them.
On February 11, 1935, resident Edith Peshak passed away from cancer. Edith and her husband joined the
commune in hopes of curing her disease through spirituality. According to Ogden, Peshak was in a
state of purification and was going to come back to life. She and the rest of the residents fed
and washed the body three times a day in a salt solution. Rumors spread throughout the town,
causing an investigation by the sheriff and a visit to the commune in June 1935. Turns out that
keeping a well-preserved body wasn’t considered a health threat, and The Home Of Truth was allowed
to do so. Things remained quiet over the next few years until another investigation went
underway in February 1937 when Ogden announced that Peshak was about to be restored to life.
She was arrested and a resident confessed to helping cremate the body. After Ogden’s arrest,
people scattered rather quickly, disillusioned.
The Home Of Truth now sits desolate, gray,
and empty with “no trespassing signs” everywhere, and not a soul in sight.
Would you be brave enough to visit The Home Of Truth? Tell us in the comments and hit
subscribe while you’re at it! 5. SAINT-JEAN-VIANNEY
On May 4, 1971, disaster struck the tiny village of Saint-Jean-Vianney,
located in the south central Quebec province in Canada. A period of heavy
rain mixed with Leda Clay - which the town was built upon liquefied under the stress,
causing part of the village to drop down 98 feet(30 m). This created a
deep channel through which a river ran through and swallowed as many as 40 houses in its path.
François Richard, a resident of Saint-Jean-Vianney,
told a reporter he was in his living room watching the hockey game when he heard shouting outside.
He walked down his street and saw houses falling one by one!
One lucky woman survived by crawling onto the roof of her car after it had fallen into the crater.
But many families found themselves trapped in the liquid mud, which then solidified.
The landslide came and went within five minutes, and killed 31 people
in that short amount of time. One story claimed the gouge left by the landslide
was 705 feet(215 m) wide and 0.3 miles (0.5 km) long.
As one would expect, the remaining residents of the village abandoned their homes as it was
declared the village was unsafe for habitation. Many people went to the next city over,
Arvida. Today, Arvida and the landslide site are now within the municipal boundaries of Saguenay.
It was later concluded that the village had been built on unstable clay soil 500 years earlier,
long before settlement in the area came along.
Today, the village hardly exists. A few empty streets and the steps of the old church square are
all that’s left. A museum exhibit commemorating the event sits at Saguenay’s Place du Presbytere.
4. RIVER COUNTRY
River Country, located in Disney World, was the location's first water park.
It opened in 1976, intending to make Disney World the “Vacation Kingdom
Of America”. The park offered a plethora of water activities such as fishing, canoeing,
sailing, and boat cruises. It also had many water slides and pools. River Country had
everything to offer to all ages and was quite popular for nearly two decades.
Disney World started to add significantly larger attractions in the 80s and they all had more to
offer than River Country and guests decided to spend their time elsewhere while at the park.
In the fall of 2001, River Country closed for the season intending to reopen in the spring.
Unfortunately because of low demand though, this never happened. Disney reported that total
abandonment was never the idea, but as years passed, that’s exactly what happened. By 2005,
there was an official announcement that River Country would never open again.
Rumors started to circulate about the real reasoning behind the park’s closing.
There were whispers that it was not closed due to unpopularity, but because there was a
dangerous amoeba in the Bay Lake water, where the park was located. There were also several
deaths that took place at River Country. One death was from the amoeba in the water and two
were from drowning in the Bay Cove. Because the water was filtered from Bay Lake, it wasn’t clear
like normal pool water.The boys that drowned went undetected for several minutes because of this.
Today, almost everything is overgrown by nature. Slides are covered in moss,
vines and weeds took over cafes, and a very intriguing top hot sits by its lonesome on
a bridge. The creepiest part about all of this is the park still plays music
but it remains vacant. 3. BUZLUDZHA MONUMENT
At the peak of the Soviet’s influence,
a monument was erected to commemorate socialist communism in central Bulgaria.
It lasted from 1981 to 1990, and it was abandoned along with the ideology that it was inspired by.
Construction began in 1974, and was taken over by the Bulgarian Army that had a team of artisans
who were left with the task of providing large statues and murals. Images portraying
Lenin and Marx were hung over the arena for the purpose of being displayed at state functions
and celebrations. Above it all there was a red star-shaped window in honor of Soviet Russia.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the site was eventually abandoned
which resulted in vandalism. Most of the artwork has been destroyed,
stolen, or removed, yet the concrete structure itself still stands strong.
A preservation team has been working hard to get the monument listed as one of the seven most
endangered heritage sites in Europe. The main entrance has been sealed and is closed
to the public. 2. CENTRALIA
Centralia, Pennsylvania once boasted 2,500 residents and 14 active coal mines in the
early 20th century. But by the 1960s, its boomtown heyday had come and gone
and most of its mines were abandoned. Still, over 1,000 people lived here
and Centralia was far from dying. That is - until a coal mine fire began below.
In 1962, a fire started in a landfill and spread to the maze of coal tunnels that miners dug
thousands of feet below the surface. The fire eventually reached the coal’s seam.
Residents assumed it would quickly die down, but shockingly it is still burning to this day!
In May 1962, the town council gathered to discuss the town’s new landfill. At the beginning of that
year, Centralia had built a 50 foot(15 m) deep pit that covered an area about half the size of
a football field to deal with the illegal dumping that was becoming a problem for the town. However,
the landfill was getting full and needed clearing before the annual Memorial Day celebration.
It seemed to go off without a hitch, with the fire department present lining the area
with incombustible material. When the fire turned to embers, it was doused with water.
However, two days later, residents again saw flames.
A week later Centralia firefighters were baffled as to where the recurring fire was coming from.
They used bulldozers and tools to stir up the remains of the burned garbage
and locate the concealed flames. Finally, they discovered the cause.
Turns out, at the bottom of the trash pit, next to the north wall,
was a 15 feet(4.5 m) wide and several feet-wide deep hole. Unfortunately, it had not been filled
with fire retardant material and trash had filled the gap. As the days passed, residents started
to notice the ground was releasing smoke and foul odors were filling their homes.
The town council decided to bring in a mine inspector to check the smoke,
who determined that the levels of carbon monoxide in them were indeed indicative of a mine fire.
They sent a letter stating that a “fire of unknown origin”
was burning under their town to the Lehigh Valley Coal Company (LVCC).
The council, the LVCC, and the Susquehanna Coal Company, which owned the coal mine,
met to discuss ending the fire as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.
But before they could come to a decision, sensors detected lethal levels of carbon monoxide seeping
from the mine. All Centralia-area mines were immediately shut down.
Several attempts were made to stop the fire, but all were unsuccessful.
Some residents stayed, but most moved on with their lives elsewhere. The ones that
stayed found a silver lining when they discovered they could grow tomatoes midwinter and shoveling
was a thing of the past. From then on, it was a constant battle between residents and the state,
and in 2013, the remaining 10 residents won a large settlement and were granted
$349,500 each and complete ownership of their property until they die.
Once Centralia’s population hits zero, the land will be seized
and any remaining structures will be destroyed.
1. CHERNOBYL
The Chernobyl Disaster was a massive nuclear accident which happened on April 26,
1986. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history in both cost and casualties.
A sudden surge of power during a reaction systems test destroyed Unit 4 of the nuclear
power station at Chernobyl, Ukraine. The accident resulted in massive amounts of
radioactive material flooding into the environment. Sand and boron
was used by emergency responders to pour on the reactor debris. The sand was to stop the fires,
and the boron was supposed to stop additional nuclear reactions. About a square mile of
pine forest near the plant was cut down and buried to reduce radioactive contamination.
Eventually, Cherynobyl’s remaining reactors were shut down for good. After the accident,
the Soviet government evacuated around 115,00 residents who were in heavily contaminated areas,
and later came back for 220,000 who were living in areas that were moderately affected.
Cherynobyl and the nearby town Pripyat, are now known as “The Exclusion Zone”,
where radioactive contamination is the highest and habitation was restricted. These days,
The Exclusion Zone has been taken over by weeds, trees, and anything else nature has to offer.
Around 1,200 of the evacuees tried returning to the Exclusion Zone a
few months after the accident. Not caring much about safety or the legality of the situation,
they chose to come back because of their love for their land. 100 residents still
live there. After they pass away, no one is allowed to live in the exclusion zone
because of the high levels of radiation that still exists… almost 4 decades later!
Thanks for watching! Which one of these apocalyptic places creeps you out the
most? Tell us in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe! See you next time, bye! :)