Editing Ghost town (section)

===South America===
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a wave of European immigrants arrived in Brazil and settled in the cities, which offered jobs, education, and other opportunities that enabled newcomers to enter the middle class. Many also settled in the growing small towns along the expanding railway system. Since the 1930s, many rural workers have moved to the big cities. Other ghost towns were created in the aftermath of dinosaur fossil rushes.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Baraniuk|first=Chris|date=15 July 2016|title=The ghost towns that were created by the oil rush|work=BBC|url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160715-the-ghost-towns-left-by-oil-booms-and-busts |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521233125/https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160715-the-ghost-towns-left-by-oil-booms-and-busts |archive-date= May 21, 2023 }}</ref>

In [[Colombia]], a [[Armero tragedy|volcano erupted]] in 1985, where the city of Armero was engulfed by lahars, which killed approximately 23,000 people in total.<ref>{{cite web |title=Benchmarks: November 13, 1985: Nevado del Ruiz eruption triggers deadly lahars |url=https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/benchmarks-november-13-1985-nevado-del-ruiz-eruption-triggers-deadly-lahars |first1=Bethany |last1=Augliere |date=October 20, 2016 |website=Earth Magazine |publisher=American Geosciences Institute |access-date=13 November 2016}}</ref> Armero was never rebuilt (its inhabitants being diverted to nearby cities, and thus becoming a ghost town), but still stands today as "holy land", as dictated by [[Pope John Paul II]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Zeiderman|first=Austin|title=Life at Risk: Biopolitics, Citizenship, and Security in Colombia|publisher=Congress of the Latin American Studies Association|year=2009|pages=12|citeseerx=10.1.1.509.6961}}</ref>

A number of ghost towns throughout South America were once mining camps or lumber mills, such as the many [[sodium nitrate|saltpeter]] mining camps that prospered in Chile from the end of the [[War of the Pacific|Saltpeter War]] until the invention of synthetic saltpeter during World War I. Some of these towns, such as the [[Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works]] in the [[Atacama Desert]], have been declared [[UNESCO World Heritage Site]]s.<ref>{{cite web|title=Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works|url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1178/|website=whc.unesco.org|publisher=UNESCO World Heritage Centre}}</ref>