The Edge of possibility: Impossible cities of the world

People settled all over the world, and most preferred comfortable and safe places. But some of us have very unusual living conditions. The hottest, coldest, most remote, inaccessible, dangerous, and incredible places on the planet inhabited by humans are reviewed in this article.

10 Impossible cities of the world

1. The driest place on Earth: Atacama Desert, Chile

The driest desert on Earth occupies an area equal to the island of Cuba and is located along the coast of Chile. It also has a second name: Death Valley. Precipitation here is a historical event; in some areas, it has not rained for 400 years. It is a lifeless world with only rocks, limestone, stones, clay, sand, salt, lichens, and small cacti. Nevertheless, people live here: about 1 million people.

They live in coastal towns near the ocean, in small green oases along the Loa River, and in mining towns where salt and copper are mined. Residents have learned how to extract water even from fog: with the help of one fog catcher (a fiber filter that traps moisture from the atmosphere and collects it in a vessel), it is possible to collect 18 liters of water per day.

The oasis village of San Pedro de Atacama is popular with Chilean tourists: the ancient settlement of Tulor, found during excavations, is nearby, and Andean flamingos are found in the Salar de Atacama salt marsh.

2. The hottest place on Earth: Dallol, Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, the Afar people live on the Edge of the Dallol volcanic crater, which is still active and erupted less than 100 years ago. They are a semi-nomadic people of East Africa who have historically been engaged in cattle breeding. Nowadays, the inhabitants of the hottest settlement on Earth, the village of Dallol, are mainly engaged in tourism. Although the area is restful, there are no roads or amenities.

Those who want to come here to look at the alien landscapes of the crater, which resemble the relief of Jupiter’s moon Io, are the “bread” for the locals. The average annual temperature in this area is +34 °C. There are lakes here, but although they are beautiful, they exude the smell of acid, which, combined with the heat, makes this place look like hell.

3. Highest mountain city: La Rinconada, Peru

La Rinconada, a mining town, is located in the Andes Mountains at an altitude of 5,100 m, making it the highest location in the world. It is also one of the most inaccessible: a multi-day trek along a narrow mountain trail leads here. The air here is skinny, low temperatures prevail, and living in general is uncomfortable.

In La Rinconada, there is no sewerage, no running water, no other benefits of civilization, and everything around is poisoned with mercury. It would seem that under such conditions, people should leave it? But no! 30,000 people live here. The reason is gold. In local mines, those who want to get rich in the most difficult conditions mine ore: they work for free and only once a month have the right to take all the production of the day for themselves.

No one knows how much gold is mined. The city exists on its own, without police, medicine, and mail. But it is known that life expectancy here is 20 years less than in the rest of Peru, due to poisoning with toxic substances.

4. The coldest city in the world: Verkhoyansk, Russia

Verkhoyansk is called the “pole of cold” of the Northern Hemisphere. The average annual temperature here is -14.5 °C, and the recorded minimum temperature was -67.8 °C. Visit. A F R I N I K . C O M . For the full article .It is never so cold in any city in the world.

The population of the city — 1,150 people — is mainly engaged in agriculture.: cattle breeding, reindeer husbandry, fur trade. People had to adapt to the harsh climate and contrasting temperatures: in July, the air can warm up to +37 °C, and the temperature in January can drop to -48 °C. Even on summer nights, there are frequent frosts. Verkhoyansk has a long-standing dispute with the village of Oymyakon over the title of “pole of cold.”

5. The most remote and smallest settlement: Adamstown, Pitcairn Island

What does it feel like to live in the middle of the ocean on a piece of land with a population of less than 50 people? The Pitcairn Islands, which are an overseas territory of Britain, do not have an airport or even a convenient port — only longboats dock. The only settlement, Adamstown, is also the smallest capital in the world.

It is home to 45 people, mostly Anglo—Polynesian mestizos, descendants of the mutineers from the Bounty ship, British sailors who settled on the island with Tahitians in 1790. An elected mayor and a ten-member Island Council govern Adamstown. People are engaged in tourism, agriculture, producing honey, and exporting postage stamps and souvenirs.
Public works are provided for them to maintain roads and improve the city. The main means of transportation for residents is ATVs.

Teachers from New Zealand provide online school education. As young people grow up, they go to this country, and the number of inhabitants hardly changes. In 2004, seven men from the island were convicted of rape, including child molestation.

The defendants referred to the existing tradition of early marriages among Tahitians, who begin sexual activity at the age of 12-13. Currently, the British Foreign Office prohibits employees from bringing children to the island, and tourists with children require special permission.

6. Volcano City: Kagoshima, Japan

Due to its proximity to the volcano and the hot climate, the Japanese city of Kagoshima was nicknamed the “Naples of the East.” The lives of 606,500 residents are constantly in danger, as the Sakurajima stratovolcano does not sleep: it regularly spews columns of ash, plunging the city into semi-darkness.

According to estimates by the meteorological service, it has been active 500 times this year alone. Locals are used to “living on a volcano,” wearing ash masks and constantly preparing for evacuation (there are special shelters for this, which the authorities have prepared). There is no doubt that Sakurajima has a powerful destructive power.

A hundred years ago, during a volcanic eruption, lava flows changed the landscape, connecting a separate island volcano with the mainland. Sometimes the height of the ash column is several kilometers, but the worst part is that there is a nuclear power plant 50 km from the volcano.…

7. Lightning Capital: Catatumbo Municipality, Venezuela

In 2013, the Venezuelan municipality of Catatumbo entered the Guinness Book of Records, as it recorded the world’s highest concentration of atmospheric electrical discharges — 250 lightning per year per km2. Local authorities immediately proclaimed the region the “lightning capital of the world.”

According to scientists, in the valley of the Catatumbo River, which flows into Lake Maracaibo, 1.2 million discharges occur per year, which are visible for 400 km, which is why the phenomenon is nicknamed the “lighthouse of Maracaibo.” The lightning of Catatumbo, oddly enough, is not accompanied by thunder.

The phenomenon is explained by the natural features of the area: the Andes mountain range blocks the winds, and as a result, abundant methane vapors from the surface of the lake form huge clouds stretched upward, which causes lightning. Catatumbo is called the natural ozone factory, as countless electrical discharges emit up to 10% of the Earth’s total ozone into the atmosphere. The Kifuka region held the previous record in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the number of lightning strikes per year is 152 per km2.

8. Tornado City: Moore, Oklahoma, USA

The largest number of tornadoes is recorded in the central United States. The area where hurricanes frequent has the unofficial name “Tornado Alley”. According to statistics from the American National Climate Data Center, tornadoes occur most often in Texas, with Kansas and Oklahoma sharing the second and third places. If you’re trying to determine the most dangerous city in terms of tornado probability, it’s most likely Moore in Oklahoma.

Since 1998, Moore has been attacked by ten tornadoes, three of which have caused significant damage. The strongest hurricane in recorded history occurred here in 1999: it was given the maximum rating on the Fujita scale — F5, with wind speeds reaching 484 km/h at that time — a record for wind on the planet.

As a result of that tornado, about a thousand houses were destroyed, and between 3,000 and 4,000 people were either temporarily or permanently relocated from the city. But despite the threat of repeated hurricanes, about 58,000 residents remain in Moore.

9. City on Fire: Centralia, USA

A three-hour drive from New York, there is the city of Centralia, the smallest in the state of Pennsylvania. It was he who served as the prototype of the Silent Hill game and became the filming location for the horror film of the same name. Underground fires have engulfed the city for more than half a century: acrid smoke has filled the streets and houses since volunteer firefighters failed to extinguish the disposed garbage in 1962.

Almost all the residents were relocated in the 1980s due to the hazardous environmental conditions and explosive nature of the area (measurements showed that gasoline in the underground tank warmed up to 78 °C). However, the servants of the local church of the Virgin Mary refused to leave. They, along with their families, remain the last inhabitants of the burnt city. The city’s official population is five people. Scientists predict that Centralia will burn for more than 250 years until its coal reserves run out.

10. Huts on the water: Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia

In the rivers of Southeast Asia, one can meet the nomadic sea people of Bajo – they are also called sea gypsies. This is an ethnic group that practically lives on the water: people build huts right in the rivers, travel exclusively by boat, eat fish, sell it, and occasionally go ashore — for example, when it is necessary to bury the dead.

Men master the art of diving from a very young age, and they can hold their breath for a long time. Sometimes, due to deep dives, they damage the eardrums. Recently, the authorities have been trying to relocate the Bajo to land, but some marine settlements remain. One of them exists on the island of Borneo, near the city of Semporna, in the Malaysian state of Sabah.