• A coal fire has been burning beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania, for over 60 years. • In 1983, the US government spent $43 million to relocate residents, but some refused to leave. • The town's story inspired the 2006 horror film "Silent Hill."
Over 60 years ago, Centralia, Pennsylvania, was a bustling coal mining town, home to more than 1,000 people.
Today, the once-thriving community is a smoldering expanse of overgrown streets, cracked pavements, and charred trees where streams of toxic gas spew into the air from hundreds of fissures in the ground.
Just a handful of residents remain.
A fire in 1962 spread from a landfill to the labyrinth of coal mines beneath the town, essentially creating a giant underground inferno that still rages, although virtually invisible from the surface

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