Hashima is one of the most remarkable of a series of hundreds of deserted Japanese islands. Once a thriving coal-mining city its population density grew to be the highest on the planet, with workers crammed vertically in ever-growing buildings and walked daily through ever-narrowing streets. Following a drop in coal production the entirely island amazingly shut down though most of its structures still stand. Currently the island is being renovated to create safe tourist paths through the rubble and tilting buildings but for now daring (and illegal) exploration is possible only by hiring a willing private boat driver to take a look.

Abandoned Town of Centralia, Pennsylvania

No list of abandoned cities and deserted towns can be complete without some discussion of one of the strangest and most infamous example: Centralia. This once-thriving town had a mine fire decades ago … but it never went out. Warning signs that something was still wrong included: smoking highways, heated underwater gas tanks and person-swallowing sinkholes. Over time most of the town’s residents have moved on though a few insist on staying despite the slowly-spreading and still-burning fire that creeps below.

Abandoned Flooded City of Quabbin, Massachusetts

The Quabbin Reservoir is the now the largest body of water in Massachusetts. However, the area it now occupies once had four small towns and a network of roads and rail tracks running through it – all of which were flooded or displaced by the filling of the area with water. While some public structures, memorials and graves were moved out of the way many still sit today at the bottom of this body of water. Some nearby structures sit above the waterline but were abandoned without the adjacent buildings that sustained their use.

“The herd is wandering just about anywhere in Majuli. A forest guard was injured and about 50 houses have been pulled down, forcing residents to take shelter in a makeshift relief camp that we have set up,” LS Changsan, Jorhat district magistrate told the media.

Majuli, some 350 kilometers east of Assam state’s capital, Guwahati, is an 850 sq kilometer island on the Brahmaputra, inhabited by an estimated 160,000 people, mostly indigenous tribal people.

Villagers were in a panic, trying hard to ward off the jumbo creatures using firecrackers and kerosene torches. A team of forest officials was sent to the island to tackle the problem, according to reports.

The magistrate also said forestry workers and officials were trying to assist the villagers in pushing the elephants away from the settlements. “The job is proving difficult.”

India has Asia’s largest elephant population, with 10,000 to 15,000 of the animals, but their numbers are declining due to habitat loss and poaching.

Assam state alone accounts for nearly 5,000 wild elephants. More than 600 people have been killed in attacks by wild elephants in Assam during the past 16 years. Loss of habitat is cited as the prime reason for elephants straying out of the jungles into human settlements.

Source:  NCBuy