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Sporkman
March 15th, 2010, 01:57 PM
I had heard of this town recently, thought I'd post it for Monday reading.

It's a ghost town in Pennsylvania, US, that was abandoned due to an extensive coal mine fire that is burning underneath the town. This manifests itself as cracked, open vents in the earth ejecting gas & smoke at various places, carbon monoxide & sulfur dangers, etc. The fire is expected to continue burning for the next 250 years...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

Tristam Green
March 15th, 2010, 02:34 PM
To generate further interest in this thread:

Centralia is the direct inspiration for the town of Silent Hill in the acclaimed video game series.

From what I understand, Centralia has an active population of like....six people.

mcduck
March 15th, 2010, 04:06 PM
To generate further interest in this thread:

Centralia is the direct inspiration for the town of Silent Hill in the acclaimed video game series.

From what I understand, Centralia has an active population of like....six people.

Only the movie, not really the actual game series.. :)

(none of the games mention anything about mines as far as I can remember)

gymophett
March 15th, 2010, 04:16 PM
It did immediately remind me of Silent Hill though.
Man, those games were fun. :)

Anyway, interesting post.

Psumi
March 15th, 2010, 04:20 PM
Even worse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl

Tristam Green
March 15th, 2010, 04:42 PM
Only the movie, not really the actual game series.. :)

(none of the games mention anything about mines as far as I can remember)

Consider this my retraction :| I did know it inspired the film's version. I thought that Centralia was the game's Silent Hill too.

mcduck
March 15th, 2010, 04:56 PM
Consider this my retraction :| I did know it inspired the film's version. I thought that Centralia was the game's Silent Hill too.

I was actually quite disappointed when the movie had such rational explanation for all the strange things happening in the town. The games played more on occult history of the town (Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3) and the possibility of most things only happening in the protagonist's mind (Silent Hill 2) leaving the truth (and what parts of the stories were actually really happening at all) pretty much unanswered.

Still, the movie was pretty good. And the first three games were awesome. (I was actually playing through SH2 but the release of Final Fantasy XIII forced me to leave it for now... :D)

cprofitt
March 15th, 2010, 05:07 PM
With as long as the fire has raged you would think we would have found a way to use it to generate energy -- or put it out.

mcduck
March 15th, 2010, 05:14 PM
With as long as the fire has raged you would think we would have found a way to use it to generate energy -- or put it out.

Well, after seeing the thread it instantly occurred to me that Ive read about such fires before in some other context. Now I remember it, the Burning Mountain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain) in Australia, estimated to have been burning for about 6000 years now... ;)

It seems that underground fires are extremely hard and expensive to extinguish (and even when they seem extinguished they might ignite again on their own after long times).

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire

edit2: perhaps they could pump water through the mines and use the heated water to produce energy like Iceland does with their hot springs... :)

Sporkman
March 15th, 2010, 05:35 PM
Even worse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl

Check out this pictorial, very interesting:

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/

Tristam Green
March 15th, 2010, 06:00 PM
I was actually quite disappointed when the movie had such rational explanation for all the strange things happening in the town. The games played more on occult history of the town (Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3) and the possibility of most things only happening in the protagonist's mind (Silent Hill 2) leaving the truth (and what parts of the stories were actually really happening at all) pretty much unanswered.

I was pleased to see a "rational" explanation for Silent Hill in the film (if you can count Alessa as a rational explanation lol). I think they had to do that because audiences wouldn't really accept events happening in a single person's mind as well as they would if the person was probably dead.