A ghost town is an abandoned village or city or town which contains remains. A town becomes a ghost or abandoned because of natural or anthropogenic activities. Natural disasters such as floods, droughts, earthquakes etc. and anthropogenic activities include government actions, war, nuclear disasters etc.
Ghost towns are settlements that became deserted now. Once it used to have a large population but now there are no or fewer people found. Some ghost towns have a beautiful archaeological architecture which become tourist spots.
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These ghost towns are frightening as well as fascinating. There are various ghost towns are present all over the world, each with its own sad stories. These attract tourists from different parts of the world. Mysterious places always attract people.
Let us see some examples of ghost towns-
The Island of Hashima is located in the East China Sea. Here huge deposits of coal are found during the 19th century and coal mining started here. Because of coal deposits, it used to be a densely populated town but now it is abandoned by its residents. UNESCO has declared this town a World Heritage site. People are now allowed to visit here but only at some specific places. What happening on the rest of the part of Island is still a mystery.
Chinese ghost towns have empty apartments, deserted streets, markets without goods and customers, schools without children, universities without students and giant buildings. These towns are built recently. The government built these buildings to transfer people from the village to towns but these remain empty even today. The problem is that departments are too expensive and people can’t find jobs there, therefore these new cities become ghost towns. Here everything is present to live a life except people.
Dhanushkodi is a ghost town in India. This is the southernmost tip of Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. Here the Bay of Bengal meets with the Indian ocean. This used to be one of the crowded and busiest towns of Rameswaram. But now because of the flood, this town is completely deserted. This flood killed more than thousands of people. No tourists are allowed to be here after 6 pm.
There are various other ghost towns in the world.
