Editing Ghost town (section)

=== Disasters, actual and anticipated ===
[[File:Craco il paese fantasma.jpg|thumbnail|left|[[Craco]], Italy, was abandoned due to a landslide in 1963. It has since become a popular film set.]]
Natural and human-made disasters can create ghost towns. For example, after being flooded more than 30 times since their town was founded in 1845, residents of [[Pattonsburg, Missouri]], decided to relocate after two floods in 1993. With government help, the whole town was rebuilt {{convert|3|mi|0|abbr=out|disp=or}} away.

[[Craco]], a medieval village in the Italian region of [[Basilicata]], was evacuated after a landslide in 1963. Nowadays it is a filming location for many movies, including ''[[The Passion of The Christ]]'' by [[Mel Gibson]], ''[[Christ Stopped at Eboli (film)|Christ Stopped at Eboli]]'' by [[Francesco Rosi]], ''[[The Nativity Story]]'' by [[Catherine Hardwicke]] and ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' by [[Marc Forster]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/search/title?locations=Craco,%20Matera,%20Basilicata,%20Italy&ref_=ttloc_loc_14|title=Most Popular Titles With Location Matching "Craco, Matera, Basilicata, Italy"|website=Internet Movie Database|access-date=15 November 2013}}</ref>

In 1984, [[Centralia, Pennsylvania]], was abandoned due to an uncontainable [[mine fire]], which began in 1962 and still rages to this day; eventually the fire reached an abandoned mine underneath the nearby town of [[Byrnesville, Pennsylvania|Byrnesville]], which caused that mine to catch on fire too and forced the evacuation of that town as well.

[[File:Pripyat-today.jpg|thumb|[[Prypiat|Pripyat]], Ukraine, was abandoned after the [[Chernobyl disaster]].]]
Ghost towns may also occasionally come into being due to an ''anticipated'' natural disaster – for example, the Canadian town of [[Lemieux, Ontario]], was abandoned in 1991 after soil testing revealed that the community was built on an unstable bed of [[Leda clay]]. Two years after the last building in Lemieux was demolished, a landslide swept part of the former town-site into the [[South Nation River]]. Two decades earlier, the Canadian town of [[Saint-Jean-Vianney, Quebec|Saint-Jean-Vianney]], Québec, also constructed on a Leda clay base, had been abandoned after a landslide on 4 May 1971, which swept away 41 homes, killing 31 people.

Following the [[Chernobyl disaster]] of 1986, dangerously high levels of nuclear contamination escaped into the surrounding area, and nearly 200 towns and villages in Ukraine and neighbouring [[Belarus]] were evacuated, including the cities of [[Pripyat]] and [[Chernobyl]]. The area was so contaminated that many of the evacuees were never permitted to return to their homes. Pripyat is the most famous of these abandoned towns; it was built for the workers of the [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant]] and had a population of almost 50,000 at the time of the disaster.<ref name=chernobyl>{{cite book|last=Mould|first=R. F.|title=Chernobyl Record: The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe|year=2000|publisher=Institute of Physics Publishing|location=Bristol|isbn=0-7503-0670-X|pages=103–117|chapter-url={{GBurl|id=O36UC03ODtcC|pg=PA103}}|chapter=Evacuation and Resettlement}}</ref>

==== Human health ====
[[File:Rerik-West-September-2014.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Rerik West]], Germany. Turned into a restricted area after 1992 due to ammunition contamination from a nearby abandoned [[Soviet Army]] barracks.]]
Significant fatality rates from epidemics have produced ghost towns. Some places in eastern [[Arkansas]] were abandoned after more than 7,000 Arkansans died during the [[Spanish flu]] epidemic of 1918 and 1919.<ref name="CDC">{{cite journal |url=https://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/14/8/1193.htm |volume=14 |issue= 8 |date=August 2008 |title=Deaths from Bacterial Pneumonia during 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic |last1= Brundage |first1=John F. |first2=G. Dennis |last2=Shanks |journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases |publisher=U.S. [[Centers for Disease Control]] |access-date=11 July 2010|doi=10.3201/eid1408.071313 |pages=1193–1199|pmc=2600384 |pmid=18680641}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Annual report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States - 1920 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=[[Public Health Service]]}}</ref> Several communities in Ireland, particularly in the west of the country, were wiped out due to the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] in the latter half of the 19th century, and the years of economic decline that followed.

Catastrophic environmental damage caused by long-term contamination can also create a ghost town. Some notable examples are [[Times Beach, Missouri]], whose residents were exposed to a high level of [[dioxins and dioxin-like compounds|dioxins]], and [[Wittenoom, Western Australia]], which was once Australia's largest source of [[blue asbestos]], but was shut down in 1966 due to health concerns. [[Treece, Kansas|Treece]] and [[Picher, Oklahoma|Picher]], twin communities straddling the [[Kansas]]–[[Oklahoma]] border, were once one of the United States' largest sources of [[zinc]] and [[lead]], but over a century of unregulated disposal of [[mine tailings]] led to groundwater contamination and [[lead poisoning]] in the town's children, eventually resulting in a mandatory [[Environmental Protection Agency]] buyout and evacuation. Contamination due to [[ammunition]] caused by military use may also lead to the development of ghost towns. [[Tyneham]], in [[Dorset]], was requisitioned for military exercises during the [[Second World War]], and remains unpopulated, being littered with unexploded munitions from regular shelling.