Slide Show of Man-Made Disasters

"On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Station exploded, releasing radioactive material into the air and contaminating millions of square miles. The 49,000-person town closest to the reactor, Pripyat, was forced to evacuate entirely. Two decades later, this ghost town is a radioactive freeze frame of the Soviet Union in 1986. Without people, the city is beginning to be swallowed up by the surrounding forest."
Enjoy them all here.

"Called the most toxic place in the United States by the EPA, it was once the world's richest lead and zinc mining field, and home to 20,000 people. Now fewer than 25 people remain. Acidic water seeped up from the underground mining tunnels and turned the creek that runs through the area red and poisonous. The deteriorating underground mines threaten to swallow the streets whole, and mountains of mining waste contaminated with lead loom over the empty town."

And the trees look pretty bad, too!