Disaster Areas

Naval Underground Headquarters

Tomigusuku, Okinawa, Japan

During World War II, Japanese naval forces in Okinawa, led by Rear Admiral Minoru Ota, built an elaborate underground headquarters, with hundreds of meters of connecting tunnels under a hill in... »

Memento Mori, Ossuaries, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries, Ghost Towns, Disaster Areas, Subterranean Sites | Submitted by spinkk | Updated by wythe

Fort Zverev

Nightmarish example of the unintended consequences of weapons testing.

Red bricks melted to stalactites, look like Hell Raiser's "Pinhead" character. »

Disaster Areas, Incredible Ruins, Subterranean Sites | Edited by littlebrumble

A-bomb Memorial, Hiroshima, Japan

Peace Park and the A-bomb dome

On Monday, August 6th, 1945, at 8:15 am, a US bomber dropped the first nuclear weapon used in warfare over the city of Hiroshima. Estimates of the number killed vary from 90,000 to 166,000... »

Museums and Collections, Strange Science, Unique Collections, Memento Mori, Ghost Towns, Disaster Areas | Edited by spinkk and Dylan

Wiltshire's Secret Underground City: The Burlington Nuclear Bunker

Below a historic English market town lies a secret underground city complete with kitchens, laundries, storerooms, a pub, and an underground lake

In disaster movies, when the asteroid is hurtling towards earth, or the super volcano is about to blow, there is always a top-secret location where the president, government officials and... »

Retro-Tech, Disaster Areas, Incredible Ruins, Repositories of Knowledge, Subterranean Sites | Edited by and Dylan

The Aral Sea

Rusting ships sit in a desert where a sea used to be

A man made environmental disaster has left a once-great sea dry, the land polluted, and the locals inundated with disease. The destruction of the Aral Sea is a strange legacy of the US Civil War,... »

Watery Wonders, Ghost Towns, Disaster Areas | Edited by Annetta

Dead Horse Bay

First a horse rendering plant, then a 19th century landfill, this beach of glass is scavenger heaven

Like most of New York City, Dead Horse Bay has a long history of changes. Over the years, much of old New York has been torn down, replaced, torn down again, and replaced again by new buildings... »

Disaster Areas | Edited by michelle

The Berkeley Pit

Copper from this former open-pit mine helped to electrify America. Now it is filled with more than 40 billion gallons of acidic water, heavy metals, and unique microscopic lifeforms.

The Berkeley Pit is a former open-pit copper mine in Butte Montana, and now one of the only places in the world where you can pay to see toxic waste; admission is two dollars. The sheer scale of... »

Watery Wonders, Martian Landscapes, Disaster Areas | Edited by jamesb, bopo and others

Chicxulub Crater

World's third largest impact crater, and where the fate of the dinosaurs was sealed

Buried beneath thousands of feet of limestone in the Yucatán Peninsula are the remains of an impact so great that it wiped out over half of the Earth’s species. The Chicxulub Crater, named after... »

Geological Oddities, Disaster Areas | Edited by Trevor

Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse Five opens it's dank doors to fans of Kurt Vonnegut

In Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, the main character Billy Pilgram is captured by the Germans and taken to Dresden. In Dresden, Billy... »

Disaster Areas, Incredible Ruins, Repositories of Knowledge | Edited by

Broad Street Cholera Pump

The John Snow Memorial marks the epicenter of London's 1854 cholera epidemic

In the fall of 1854, 500 people died in just ten days in the center of London in the worst of a series of cholera outbreaks. At the time, the way that cholera spread was a mystery, generally... »

Strange Statues, Disaster Areas | Edited by Annetta and stanestane

Obscura Day is coming!

Join us March 20th, 2010 in celebrating wondrous and curious places all over the world. RSVP for expeditions and tours at obscuraday.com.

We are SXSW Web Awards Finalists

Atlas Obscura is a 2010 SXSW Web Awards finalist in the Amusement category. Help us win the People's Choice Award. Vote here.

Recent Activity

Facebook

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

Email updates

Stay up to date on Atlas Obscura events, tours, and new features.

Elsewhere on the Web