What Happened at Australia's Wittenoom Has Never Been Officially Acknowledged

In 2007 the Western Australian government removed a town from all official maps, road signs, and GPS databases. Not because it had been cleaned up. Because it was easier to erase the name than deal with what was left behind. Three million tons of blue asbestos tailings still sit in the gorge the town was built around, spreading into surrounding waterways and national parks. More than four thousand deaths have been linked to the site. The Banjima people, whose country this has always been, cannot safely return to tend it. In February 2026 they filed a 1.5 billion dollar claim in the Federal Court. Australia's most toxic site officially does not exist. That has been true for eighteen years. #abandonedplaces #australia #ancienthistory