Wittenoom

The Australian mining town of Wittenoom became a boomtown producing the lung-punishing mineral asbestos. Today, it is mostly abandoned, after the government tried to scratch the town quite literally off the map.

The government tried to phase out the township by making it basically inaccessible—painting over its name on street signs and erasing it from maps. However there are still a few stubborn holdouts in the toxic ghost town. There were around six residents in 2015, who,  although their power had been turned off and they had to drive many miles for municipal services, chose to remain in Wittenoom.