Another installment in our series on abandoned places in the world.
1. Abandoned Sanatorium Liva, Kemeri, Latvia
Built between 1975 and 1988, “Liva” was a 12-story sanatorium located in Kemeri, a resort town known for its luxurious health baths and sanatoriums. In operation for only seven years, the site became obsolete during the 1990s regional financial crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
2. Lion City (Shicheng City), China
Lion City (aka Shicheng City) is an 1,800 year old city founded during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25BCE – 200CE). Located in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, Lion City now resides some 90 feet below the surface of Quiandoa lake. Once home to more than 200,000 people, the ancient city was flooded on completion of the Xian’an River Hydropower Station in 1959.
3. Moynaq, Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan’s only port city, Moynaq, was once the centre for fishing and canning. The city is now home to an ecological disaster due to the demise of the Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth largest landlocked body of water, Aral sea is now a shadow of its former self. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union diverted the two main rivers that fed the sea in order to transform the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan into fields for cotton and other crops. Now with more than 90% of its water lost, the dried up sea is an environmental and health disaster due to both agricultural chemical runoff and salt polluted air destroying both the sea and killing residents of the towns in its vicinity. Brace yourselves for the pending water wars.
Aral Sea – 1989 and 2008
4. PPG Coatings & Resins, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Located in the industrial portion of Clarkson in Mississauga, PPG Coatings & Resins closed in 2009. Once providing OEM automotive paints for several large automakers, the plant’s closure is said to be owed to the decline in the North American auto industry. PPG has since relocated its operations to Shanghai, China.
5. Dhee Ayn, Saudi Arabia
Dhee Ayn is a 400-year old village located on a marble mountain in the Al Bahah province of Saudi Arabia. Commonly referred to as the “marble village,” Dhee Ayn was once famous for its fruit and banana plantations. Abandoned some 30 to 40 years ago, most of its slate and flake stoned houses now lay in ruins.
For previous entries, please click here.
