The fire of hell is blazing under the ground, the laughing city has become deserted, now this flame will not be extinguished for 250 years!

There are many such places in the world where nature and man’s mistakes have together created something so horrifying that the soul can shudder. ‘Centralia’, located in Pennsylvania, America, is one such city, which has today turned into a deserted ruin. If smoke were not coming out from the cracks in the ground, drivers passing by would not even know that they were passing through an area that was once part of a prosperous city. A ‘hell fire’ has been burning beneath Centralia for decades, which has turned the once cheerful city into a ‘ghost town’. Scientists believe that this fire may continue burning for the next 250 years or even longer. Centralia was once a prosperous mining town, where thousands of people lived. The coal mines here were opened in 1856, which provided employment to local families.

At its peak in the 1890s, the population was approximately 2,761, and the town had several churches, hotels, theatres, banks and post offices. But with the decline in mining activity in the 1960s, the city’s fortunes began to change. How this underground fire started still remains a mystery. Some believe that the fire set to clean the garbage reached the old tunnels of the mines, which took the form of an unquenchable flame. Initially the local people considered it a minor problem, but gradually the smell of sulfur and poisonous smoke made the air poisonous. The situation became dire in 1979 when the city’s mayor, John Coddington, discovered that the temperature in his petrol pump’s underground storage tank had reached 77.8 degrees Celsius.

Two years later, an accident that happened with 12-year-old Todd Domboski caught the attention of the whole world. Todd was playing in his garden when suddenly the ground caved in and a 150 feet deep crater was formed. Todd saved his life by holding the root of a tree, but poisonous gases like carbon monoxide were coming out from the pit. By 1983, officials decided to evacuate the city and budgeted more than $42 million for the rehabilitation of residents. Within no time, more than 1000 people left their homes and more than 500 buildings were razed to the ground. By 1990, only 63 people were left here. An agreement was reached in 2013, under which the last seven residents were allowed to live there until their death, after which their property would be confiscated.

Today this fire has spread over a radius of more than 13 kilometers and huge reserves of coal under the ground are continuously fueling it. Today’s Centralia is under the control of nature. Trees have grown from the middle of the roads and boards warning of poisonous gases are installed everywhere. Now only an old church and some deserted roads are left in the name of old buildings. Whenever it rains and water reaches down through the cracks in the ground, a plume of steam comes out from the fire burning below, which looks like a scary dream. This city is a witness to how a small human mistake can wipe out an entire colony from the pages of history.