Throughout the history of human settlements, there have been occasions where towns and cities have been abandoned. These occasions are the result of extraordinary circumstances (after all, who would abandon a perfectly good town?), with many such events happening due to natural disasters, though not always.

The town of Pripyat, Ukraine is a famous example of a man-made disaster forcing a city to be abandoned. Pripyat is not far from Chernobyl, and as a result of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Disaster, nearly 50,000 people were evacuated a day after the event itself. To date, it remains abandoned, though Russian and Ukrainian forces have tussled over the city in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion. It is quite strange to think that one day, it was a vibrant, bustling city, and literally the next, it was left to stand as a silent, eerie monument to a terrifying disaster.

Across the Atlantic, the USA has several ghost towns. The town of Picher, Oklahoma, was deliberately abandoned relatively recently. For some time the town served the local mining community, where the main products mined were zinc and lead. Lead is a toxic metal, and over the years the land became increasingly hostile to human life. The mining also weakened the ground around the town, leading to the very real risk of sinkholes swallowing buildings. A tornado in 2008 (which killed six people) further damaged Picher, and a steady winding down of the town began in 2009.

Picher once had a population of over 1,600, but as of 2010, only 20 people remained. It is most certainly not going to be cleaned up any time soon.

Sometimes, ghost towns form not out of disasters, but out of politics. The town of Famagusta lies on the border of the Turkish and Greek sections of Cyprus, and was abandoned during the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974. For years the town lay derelict, for it was considered disputed territory. I have been to Famagusta (well, the outskirts), and saw first-hand the toys, cars and homes that people left when they fled the fighting. It was a haunting, surreal place to see.

Sometimes, ghost towns get a second lease of life, often as tourist attractions. Whether or not this happens depends entirely upon why they were abandoned. It is unlikely Picher or Pripyat will see regular human activity any time soon, but there may yet be hope for Famagusta, which is already seeing signs of life, some 50 years later. It goes to show that there is always hope.

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