Friday, November 28, 2008

The fires under Centralia, PA














In 1962, attempts to clean up a landfill by burning it set fire to the coal mine underneath Centralia, Pennsylvania. The fire has been going strong ever since. Most of Centralia is in ruins and its population has dropped from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to less than 10 in 2007. As the area is loaded with rich deposits of coal, the spreading underground fire is expected to threaten the neighboring town of Ashland in the near future. There are no immediate plans to extinguish the fire, which is consuming an eight-mile seam containing enough coal to fuel it for upwards of 250 years.

So you want to visit Centralia PA ...

Centralia Pennsylvania (many photos)
Centralia, Pennsylvania wiki

hat tip to wtf_nature

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is very interesting. There's nothing that fascinates like abandoned places.

John M. said...

Indeed. Add to that a raging underground coal-fire and it's quite fascinating.

I'm going to have to check this place out next time I'm up north.

Anonymous said...

Is this right?!
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjtmaCI9_wM

Oh on...it's destroying city and eating coal !
No idea in the global technologies? huh...

John M. said...

Hi alansmithee1

Indeed that is the same town, although I had no idea that it was the inspiration for Silent Hill!