Wittenoom, Western Australia

Rare card · No. 66761

Wittenoom is a former mining town and a declared contaminated site, 1,420 kilometres (880 mi) north-north-east of Perth, in the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The declared contaminated site comprises 46,840 hectares (115,700 acres), making it the largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere, an area nearly 1⁄5 the size of the Chernobyl exclusion zone area. The Government of Western Australia "strongly advises against all travel through Wittenoom and the surrounding areas". The area around Wittenoom was mainly pastoral until the 1940s when mining for blue asbestos began. In 1947, a company town was established and grew to a peak population of 881 in 1961. Following the closure of the mine in 1966, the town declined to just 100 residents by 1979. Amid health concerns about asbestos contamination, a series of decisions by the Western Australian Government resulted in services being removed and the eventual eviction of all remaining residents by 2023. The...

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