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In Pennsylvania, USA, there is a town called Centuria, which is known as a local ghost town, different from the general town as lively market, warm people; Centuria town is unusually quiet, the streets are empty on both sides, the town center is a large abandoned houses, the road is crawling with huge cracks, never dissipate the smoke from the cracks slowly rise, pervading the whole town.
As early as the end of the 17th century, a prospector named Robert Morris and his surveyors discovered that there was as much as 25 million tons of coal buried underground, known as the world's largest coal resource.
The discovery of coal brought a remote town to an era of prosperity, but after the outbreak of World War I and the Great Depression, the mines of Centuria were hit hard, and the original lively town was suddenly quiet, and all that remained were the large and small mines and the people who had long been accustomed to living here.
On Memorial Day 1962, the town's firefighting volunteers decided to conduct a massive cleanup in anticipation of the holiday. They transported the collected garbage to the new landfill for incineration.
But it is so unlucky that the landfill is just below the entrance of an abandoned mine, burning flames with the abandoned mine mouth spread to the coal layer, coupled with the old mine tunnel is full of oxygen, the fire became uncontrollable.
The town government, which found that the situation was not good, immediately began to put out the fire, but no one expected that they had completely underestimated the severity of the fire, the coal burned slowly and lasted a long time.
In order to fight this fire to the end, they used all kinds of methods, but all to no avail, but threw in a large sum of money for nothing. Due to the lack of funds, coupled with the town government and can not think of an effective way and slowly began to slacken. The fire under the town of Centuria has continued until today, but the people living here are very optimistic.
In the following years, the town's ground became hotter and hotter, and the large amount of carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide produced during the burning process began to slowly endanger the health of the residents, some people began to faint unconsciously, and some people fell asleep and were poisoned.
Not only that, the coal burning will also produce foundation cavity, easy to collapse, the local residents called this sinkhole. Local residents are likely to go out well before, but back when the legs and feet have been broken, and even some pits will kill people, because many pits are still a sea of fire.
As the underground temperature continues to rise, the ground has also appeared one after another, a crack of varying depths, the danger is everywhere, the frequency of casualties is increasing. The federal government issued a notice to the residents of the town, the place is full of danger, is no longer suitable for people to live, must be moved out as soon as possible, and put out a special payment for the residents of the relocation costs.
In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service canceled its service to the town of Centuria, and the original lively town completely lost its vitality. Thus, the town of Centrolia became a "ghost town" overnight. The government erected a danger sign outside the town precinct, but this did not hinder the unique charm of the town, in the continuous visits of explorers, the town turned into a famous attraction.
Young people began to dress the town in new clothes, painted graffiti on the broken roads, filled with the words welcome to hell, abandoned roads become colorful, forming an alternative interesting scene. But under the new clothes it is still hard to hide the vicissitudes of the town.
It takes hundreds of millions of years to form coal, and the earth's resources are used a little bit less, if we don't exercise restraint, maybe our future generations will have no resources available. To protect the environment and resources, I hope you and I will walk together.
