I've just been reading about a virtual ghost town in America called Centralia. A fire started in the underground coal seams in the early 1960s and is still burning with some reports saying that it could burn for hundreds of years more. When large holes started appearing in the streets from subsidence, the government shelled out and moved most of the people. But if they wanted to stay then they could and so even now there are a few houses left surrounded by the smouldering ground and sulphur smells. So what can be seen is mostly the grid of roads, still with signs and driveways that lead to nowhere. Strange stuff.


Anyone even been there or heard much about it?

offroaders.com/centralia

Yes, I have been to Centralia, and couldn't wait to leave. The smoke that comes out of the ground makes one think they are about to fall into Hades!

My boyfriend has been there and told me about it; he found it fascinating (but yes, rather smelly). Apparently, every now and then, some part of the fire works its way aboveground where it is then extinguished, but there's very little anyone can do about the underground fire.

The place sounds both intriguing *and* rather like something out of a horror movie!

I've heard of it, but in my five or six years in Pennsylvania, we never visited there. There is a town in northern France that has the same problem though. The houses were built on areas that collapsed gradually next to the mines.
The govt had to pay them off but it's a horrid mess. The one side claiming they should have known, it's a natural phenomenon, the other that it's a man made problem.

At the moment I don't own a home, but I always worry about buying one again some day and getting it on some natural or man made disaster. Was just brooding over it this past weekend as I saw some poor people around this area lose their homes and some their lives in mudslides here in Southern France. Last year, roads went out...hills slid down, across the border in Italy, a doctor's house just slid down the hill and he was killed. It's unusual in a medieval village too!

Another thing I noticed in one area in Alsace is the proximity to the quarry, not only were there cracks and things beneath the housing development, but they got to do two dynamite things per week only so had to schedule them. On Fridays we'd hear it. All the houses built from new construction were cracked too.

Iceland would be another interesting place to study. We visited there and it seems as though the houses are being perpetually fixed and replastered from geophysical motion, geysers and what have you. The wind is so strong you can barely grow trees too.
I think the tour guide of Reykavik pointed out everything that resembled a bush or tree to us.
They do heat their water with it so guess it's not all bad.
I was wondering how on earth (appropriate term in this instance) you manage to put up any structures without finding out if they are located on a natural gas thing.