Hello Most Amazing fam!
I’m Abbey… and I’m Lucy.
Lucy is here from over on Top 5 Scary.. **talky talky**
She is joining us for todays video, Top 10 Most Feared Cities In The World
Cities can be feared for a variety of reasons, from violence, to ghosts, and to history.
So today let’s talk about 10 that people fear, and get right into it.
Abbey: This list starts off at number ten with Los Cabos, Mexico
Los Cabos is starting off this list because of it’s high homicide rate.
In 2017, the city had a population of 328,245 people and reported a total of 365 homicides.
That’s 111.33 homicides per every 100,000 people.
And that number is high, especially for a popular tourist destination.
Resort towns don’t usually see as high levels of violence, but Los Cabos seems to be the
exception.
While cartels avoided carrying out violence in the popular vacation cities before, there
was a 500 percent increase between 2016 and 2017.
Human rights advocates and defenders, journalists, and low-level drug dealers were the ones murdered
in greater numbers.
The violence of inter-cartel feuding and the want for control of the area typically doesn’t
have an effect on tourists who are there for a soak in the sun.
But I would definitely check travel advisories before I booked my next vacation.
Lucy: Caracas, Venezuela Caracas is the capital and largest city of
Venezuela, and the centre of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas.
Venezuela and its capital, Caracas, are reported to both have among the highest per capita
murder rates in the world.
Caracas is the city with the highest homicide rate in the world outside of a warzone, with
a 2016 rate of around 120 murders per 100,000 people.
Most murders and violent crimes go unsolved, with estimates of the number of unresolved
crimes as high as 98%.
The US Department of State and British Foreign and Commonwealth Office have issued travel
warnings for Venezuela, particularly Caracas due to high rates of crime.
Outside of its whopping crime rate, Caracas has been considered one of the most important
cultural, tourist, industrial and economic centres of Latin America, with the Museum
of Contemporary Art of Caracas being one of the most important in South America.
Abbey: Chernobyl Unlike others on this list, this city isn’t
feared because of criminal fears.
But you still shouldn’t go there.
On April 26, 1986, there was a nuclear accident at the number 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear
Power Plant.
The explosion killed 2 workers and the accident took the lives of 31 people overall.
Due to it being a Nuclear power plant explosion, it caused radioactive debris of fuel and reactor
components to fly out and rain over the surrounding area.
While that happened, a fire spread, as well as toxic fumes and dust.
To this day there is a one thousand square mile exclusion zone that is restricted to
the public.
Only scientists and government officials can go in because of the worry of the effects
of lingering radiation.
While people have been away, pictures show that nature has been thriving.
And, after the show by the same name came out, the outskirts of the exclusion zone have
seen visitors more frequently.
Lucy: San Pedro Sula, Honduras San Pedro Sula is the capital of Cortes Department,
Honduras.
With a population of 661,190 in the central urban area and 1,445,598 in its metropolitan
area in 2019, it is the nation’s primary industrial center and second largest city.
At one point in time, San Pedro Sula was the murder capital of the world, up until 2016
when Caracas surpassed its homicide rate.
In 2013, the city had 187 homicides per 100,000 residents, and according to the LA Times,
the homicide rate is stoked by the rivalry of the brutal street gangs, mostly descendants
of gangs formed in LA and deported to Central America in the 1990s, including Mara Salvatrucha
and the 18th street gang.
Their ranks are fed by the disastrous economy of Honduras, and emboldened more recently
by alliances with Mexican drug traffickers moving cocaine through the country.
Overall, arms trafficking is a huge problem, and illegal firearms are prevalent throughout
the city, in turn making it a city tourists should avoid at all cost.
Abbey: Montego Bay, Jamaica Reggae isn’t the only thing to come out
of Jamaica, a high homicide rate is there too, unfortunately.
Killings in the city are mainly related to lottery scams and gangs according to city
officials.
The lottery scams are advanced fee fraud scams, if you were wondering.
It was written in the Jamaican Gleaner that in 2017 the country had one thousand six hundred
and sixteen murders in 2017, with three hundred and thirty five taking place in the parish
of St. James.
Montego Bay is located within that Parish.
The Prime Minister of Jamaica declared a state of emergency in the St. James region because
of the violence.
Although guns and ammunition aren’t manufactured in Jamaica, they are the weapon of choice
in most murders.
If you currently have a vacation booked there, the most common advice is to stay on resort
grounds.
Lucy: Karachi, Pakistan Karachi is the capital of the Pakistani province
of Sindh.
It is also the most populous city in Pakistan and fifth-most-populous city proper in the
world.
Though the Karachi region has been inhabited for millennia, the city was founded as the
fortified village of Kolachi in 1729.
The settlement drastically increased in importance upon the arrival of British East Indian Company
in the mid 19th century, who not only embarked on major works to transform the city into
a major seaport, but also connected it with their extensive railway network.
Often stated to be amongst the world’s most dangerous cities, with the Numbeo Crime Index
2014 ranking Karachi as the 6th most dangerous city in the world.
However, by the middle of 2016, its rank dropped to 31 following the launch of anti-crime operations.
The city’s large population results in high numbers of homicides with a moderate homicide
rate.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Karachi was rocked by political conflict with crime
rates drastically increasing with the arrival of weaponry from the War in Afghanistan.
Several of Karachi’s criminal mafias became powerful during a period in the 1990s, described
as “the rule of the mafia.”
Karachi’s highest death rates occurred in the mid 1990s when Karachi was much smaller,
and in 1995 1,742 killings were recorded.
As of right now, Pakistan is experiencing a great deal of unrest, particularly politically,
as well as crime and terroism.
Assassinations are common, as well as suicide bombings and gang warefare.
Abbey: Salem Massachusetts When I say Salem, I am guessing that you are
hearing Witch Trials.
We have talked about Salem quite a bit in the past, but let me give you a quick refresher.
They took place between February 1692 and May 1693.
Hundreds of people in Salem were persecuted because they were believed to be witches.
The trials were unfair and the fear that radiated through the town caused people to hide and
lie for fear that something they did would make them appear to be a witch.
Seventy eight percent of the accused and ninety five percent of those killed were women.
One girl, Dorothy Good, was four or five years old when she was accused of witchcraft.
One method of telling if someone was a witch was a swimming test where a woman was bound
and then thrown into the water.
If she floated, she was a witch, and if she sank she was innocent.
Problem is, a bunch of innocent people accidentally drowned before they could be properly rescued.
Lucy: Kolmanskop, Namibia Kolmanskop is a ghost town in the Namib in
Southern Namibia, which was named after a transport driver named Johnny Coleman who,
during a sandstorm, abandoned his ox wagon on a small incline opposite the settlement.
In 1908, the worker Zacharias Lewala found a diamond while working in this area and showed
it to his supervisor, the German railway inspector August Stauch, quickly realizing the area
was rich with diamonds, German minors began settlement, and soon after the German Empire
began to exploit the diamond field.
As most would be, they became driven by the enormous wealth of the first diamond miners,
the residents built the village with amenities including a hospital, ballroom, power station,
school, theatre, casino, and even an x-ray-station.
However, the town began to hit a decline during World War II with the diamond field slowly
depleting.
And by 1954, the area had dried up and the town was abandoned to the elements.
To this day, Kolmanskop is supposedly haunted by the ghosts of minors who died in the brutal
heat of the desert.
A TV crew for Destination Truth even locked themselves in the meat locker of the old butcher’s
shop, with them reporting weird whispering in their ears.
Very, very creepy.
Abbey: San Salvador San Salvador is feared for an obvious reason.
It has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
The majority of the killings come from the gangs there that keep their control through
fear.
In the country of El Salvador, which San Salvador is in, 4000 murders occur a year on average.
San salvador happens to be where most take place.
Downtown is said to be the worst.
Gang members have access to military style weapons like automatic guns and hand grenades,
and they aren’t afraid to use the weapons on businesses, restaurants, and buses to make
a point.
Buses are the most common since they want protection money from the bus companies.
It is also said that shootouts aren’t uncommon on the streets.
Salvadorians may carry firearms and many do, with arguments having the possibility of becoming
violent quickly.
Lucy: Kabul, Afghanistan Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan,
located in the eastern section of the country.
According to estimated in 2019, the population of Kabul is around 4.114 million, making it
the 75th largest city in the world.
In the early 19th century, the British occupied the city, however, after establishing foreign
relations, they were compelled to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan.
The city was then occupied by the Soviets in 1979 but they too abandoned it after the
1988 Geneva Accords were signed.
A civil war in the 1990s between various rebel groups destroyed much of the city, resulting
in many casualties, and since 2001, the city has been continuously rebuilt.
Kabul is known to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world and has been for some
time now.
It is still a war zone, even though US troops are gradually being removed from the country.
The city suffered heavily under a bombardment campaign between rival militias which intensified
during the summer of 1992.
Due to its geographic location in a narrow valley, this made it an easy target from rockets
fired by militias who based themselves in the surrounding mountains.
As of 2014, the ANSF have been in charge of security in and around the city, with Kabul
periodically being the scene of deadly attacks, specifically government employees, soldiers
and ordinary civilians.
Now, despite frequent terror attacks in the city mainly by Taliban insurgents, the city
continues to develop and was the fifth fastest-growing city in the world as of 2012.
Alright, that was Top 10 Most Feared Cities In The World.
Thank you for joining me Lucy!
Make sure to check out Top 5 Scary, what do you have going on over there Lucy??
Well, that is all, if you enjoyed it remember to like, comment, and subscribe.
I’ve been Lucy, and I’ve been Abbey, and until next time, have a good one.