10 Toxic Towns You Still Can’t Live In

Geamana, Lupsa, Romania

Once a charming rural idyll, Geamana was situated in a deep forested valley in Transylvania’s Carpathian Mountains. Home to around 400 families, their lives were turned upside down in 1977 when Romania’s communist regime, led by Nicolae Ceausescu, decided to exploit the copper reserves of the nearby Rosia Poieni mine on a bewildering scale.

The valley was earmarked as a decantation basin where toxic waste from the copper mine, the biggest in Europe, could flow. Geamana’s inhabitants were promised big payouts from the government, but families are said to have only received a modest patch of land miles away from their home town and very little cash to live on. (see more on the next page).