Editing Ghost town (section)

==== 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.