All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S05E01.Disaster.In.The.Desert.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: Coastal
structures in Latvia

that witnessed
a forgotten battle.

They're so shattered and
splintered it appears almost as if

some vast explosive
force has taken them all out

in a chain reaction.

A chilling site that hides
a dark world war ii secret.

I'm instantly
seeing experiments,

I'm seeing torture
and I'm seeing horror.

A town in a scorching desert
that suffered an extraordinary fate.

Something happened here

that thoroughly
dismantled these structures

and washed away
evidence of human habitation.

And an epic construction project

in the mountains of Southern Africa
that unearthed a deadly material.

The thing that made it
such an amazing material

also turned it into a killer.

Decaying relics,

ruins of lost worlds,

forged by years of toil but
now haunted by the past.

Their amazing secrets are
now waiting to be revealed.

In a picturesque town
north of Berlin, Germany,

lie the charred remains

of a place with a
deeply troubling past.

It's hard to discern what it is,

it's a big kind of
hangar-like structure.

It looks like it was
for the production

of something important.

It's all very secure,
it's gated and cut off...

You're wondering why.

It's something that's
trying to be discreet,

it's on the outside of the
town and hidden by tall trees,

whatever it is it's
cloaked in secrecy.

The clues that reveal
the dark history of the site

are to be found on the inside.

As you come indoors, you
see these big halls and spaces

and you've got
these massive ovens.

Clearly, there was intense heat,

certainly there's evidence
of a fire having taken place

because of the scorch
marks on the walls and ceiling.

When I see old soulless
German engineering

rusting away with bricks

that have got gas
piping in them and taps,

and I think the most horrible things
about what might have happened here.

But what you'd
think about this place

isn't what happened here.

It's a little bit of
a different story.

So what did happen here?

And why is the building
still standing today?

The key that unlocks the secret
lies less than two miles away -

at sachsenhausen
concentration camp.

It was built by the Nazis

during the years
leading up to world war ii.

At the beginning of 1937

there were just 21 Jewish
prisoners in sachsenhausen.

By 1945 that number had
risen to more than 11,000.

After the kristallnacht pogrom
of November 1938 alone,

6,000 Jews who had been arrested
on the orders of Heinrich himmler

were sent to sachsenhausen.

The Nazi camp system
was expanded rapidly

after the beginning
of world war ii,

as the regime realised it
would need forced labour

to maintain war production.

Sachsenhausen is placed
on the outskirts of Berlin

because it's hoped
that the German people

won't know too much
about its existence.

As the Nazi's start
to tighten their grip

on German political life,

more and more people

are being pulled off the streets
of Berlin and the surrounding cities

and locked up in this place.

But the camp was only one
part of this terrifying crusade.

The now decaying structure
nearby also played a key role

in the cruel Nazi project.

It was a place in which
prisoners were forced to work.

You were worked seven days
a week, your ration was minimal.

Now these weren't
specifically death camps

but people were
worked close to death.

This was the ss bakery,

a place built to
feed their captors.

As local expert Horst
seferens tells us,

working here was simply
another form of torture.

(Speaks in foreign language)

Translation: "These big
stoves or the remains of them

"had been producing
thousands of loaves of bread

"day after day.

"What a misery it would
have been for them

"to see all that food being
produced here in abundance

"while all of them and their
fellow inmates in the camp

"were starving."

It's a dreadful irony

that the bakery might also
have been one of the few places

to offer a glimmer of hope,
but the dangers were great.

Prisoners in German
concentration camps

were systematically starved

so even some crusts
that had fallen off of bread

in those industrial ovens

might mean the difference for
them between life and death.

You might think that,

oh, if you took
the end of the loaf

that they were going
to lop off anyway

or a crust that
fell on the floor

it would be no big deal but
of course it was a big deal.

The German's were big
on insisting on obedience,

you'd be mercilessly beaten.

Despite the perils,

a former prisoner
remembers that for some

their desperate
circumstances left little choice.

Translation: "He reports
that they smuggled the bread

"into the camp.

"By halving the loaves lengthways
tying them around their calves

"so that they were covered
by their wide trousers

"and could be
smuggled into the camp.

"Of course, it was
very dangerous."

The cruelty and
inhumane conditions here

were shocking,

but sachsenhausen had
another grim purpose.

The ss, one of Hitler's
most feared organisations,

used it as a testing ground.

Translation: "On the second
floor of the central watchtower,

"the so-called 'tower a',

"through which the inmates
entered the concentration camp,

"a machine gun was stationed
here as well as two guards

"who were standing
here day and night.

"One of the model
features of sachsenhausen

"was that the guards
standing up here

"were able to control
the entire camp

"from this central point."

Sachsenhausen was the first
of its kind, the dark template

for future concentration
and death camps.

While other sites used
a rectangular model

rather than this
triangular shape,

the key feature
was obvious in both -

it provided clear lines of
sight to prevent escape.

You would be gunned down
either by that guard at the apex

or in the guard towers
scattered around the facility.

There was a need that
people wouldn't escape

because their labour was needed

but also they didn't want people
to escape and spread the word

of what was going
on inside these camps.

Translation: "The concept had
a psychological effect as well,

"wherever the prisoners
moved in the camp

"this watchtower was to
be seen from everywhere.

"They basically looked directly
into the hole of this machine gun

"symbolically expressing
the total power of the ss."

As the prototype camp this
place played another vital role

during the early years
of the Nazi regime.

In the mid '30s

the Nazi's were just
starting to figure out

how to build a
concentration camp.

The Nazi's are hiring
ordinary police officers

and they're hiring
ordinary tradesmen

and sachsenhausen is the place

where an ordinary German
can be turned into an ss killer.

Helping to feed this dreadful
system was the bakery.

And its success meant
that the next chapter

in its tragic story
would soon begin.

When world war ii begins in 1939

and Germany massively
mobilised, calls all the reserves,

expands conscription,

you suddenly have a
need for bread, you know,

to feed all the big
Garrison around Berlin.

At the beginning
production is moderate,

we're talking
10,000 loaves a day,

later on, you're talking of
a much greater expansion

of four to five times of
the original factory output.

Everything here was soon replicated
at sites all across the German reich.

The Nazi's had made
a success of slavery,

so that too was increased and
expanded on a horrifying scale.

Because this is one
of the early attempts

to set up a large ss
industrial enterprise,

this is used as a model
for other large ss facilities.

By the middle of world war ii

the ss is one of the
largest industrial operations

in the third reich.

Forced labour became a key
element of the Nazi war machine.

The infamous slogan on the gate,

"work sets you free,"
was very far from the truth.

Translation: "In fact, working
in a concentration camp

"had a completely
different function.

"Work here had always
been an instrument to abuse,

"torture and even
put prisoners to death.

"Of course, that slogan was
used to conceal the reality."

But in a final twist of fate

the bakery that had helped
feed the vicious ss regime

turned out to be the lifeline

for those few inmates
fortunate enough

to see the end of the war.

It came with the liberation
of the camps by the Soviets.

The Soviets find
this bread factory

and they press in it into
service to feed their own troops,

to feed the 3,000 or
so surviving inmates.

And for these camp inmates
it must have been fantastic

because they'd
been looking hungrily

at these thousands of loaves
of bread made every day,

and suddenly,

they have the
opportunity to eat them.

The fact that people
remained alive

in this concentration camp
was almost miraculous.

The fact that there
was a bakery nearby

that could feed
them was a blessing.

With its darkest
years now behind it,

the bakery remained
in use until the 1990s

when it was
devastated by a fire.

But as the years of horror
recede further from memory,

today the two sites are
as important as ever.

Translation: "They testify the
very existence of these camps

"and crimes.

"And that cannot be denied.

"We think that these
architectural witnesses

"will be all the more
important in the future.

"Because the people who
once survived the terror

"of the ss in these camps

"will soon no longer
be amongst us."

In the arid plains of Nevada, usa,
miles from any signs of civilisation

are the dusty remains
of a crumbling site.

This is a harsh place to live,

it's in the middle of the desert,
the sun is beating down on it,

but it's not clear

what exactly would have
caused such devastation.

Everything is almost
completely dismantled,

kind of like what you
see in a very ancient ruin.

But when you look more closely

you can see it's
not actually that old,

you can see signs of concrete.

Something swept through here,

something's happened
to take away the structure.

A closer inspection of
the strange features here

begins to reveal the
bizarre chain of events

that contributed
to its downfall.

We're looking for clues

and one of the
details that stands out

is the tree trunks
just all kind of cut off.

Another detail,

is that everything is
incredibly weathered,

there's no sharp edges,
there's no right angles here,

everything's been rounded off.

What's really strange

is that you're in the
middle of the desert

but there are shells

which might actually be the clue

that describes exactly
what happened here.

It's really hot out here.

We're in the mojave desert,

and temperatures can
get up to 115 degrees

in the summer.

The most important
thing being out here

is to have a lot
of water with you.

As an archaeologist with
the national park service,

Erin eichenberg has
made extensive studies

of the land around the ruins.

And she thinks that
despite the searing heat,

the attractions of
the site were clear.

This is a pretty
inhospitable place to live

but because we're
near the confluence

of the virgin and
the muddy river here

people were able to make it work
and lived here for over 70 years.

Based around agriculture the
settlement here once blossomed,

but the seeds of its destruction

were actually sown
in the mid 19th century,

when a group of mormons arrived
hoping to establish a town here.

When the first settlers
arrived here in 1865

this was the middle of nowhere

in the middle of nowhere.

They thought they were still
within the boundaries of Utah

but it turned out they'd
moved into Nevada.

And when the tax
inspector turned up

and informed them
that they weren't in Utah

they actually decided to move on
and burnt the town to the ground.

So what we see here today
is the next stage of this town,

this is the following story.

So the early settlers left
this place a burnt-out ruin.

But it would eventually see
a second destructive event,

and this time

the cause could hardly
have been more different.

This is the ghost
town of st Thomas.

So after the mormon's moved
out, other settlers moved in,

they started farms,
they built a village

and they were able to establish
a pretty self-sufficient community.

They were pretty remote,

in the desert but they had
everything they needed,

they had built a really
nice life for themselves,

they didn't need for anything.

But whilst st Thomas
began life as a hidden secret

deep in the desert,

the evidence here
of an old rail track

on the edge of town

explains why it didn't
remain secret for very long.

At the beginning
of the 20th century

the world is getting smaller,

america is turning
a corner at this point,

railways are spreading across,
the population was growing,

opportunity is out there.

And this brings,
you know, great hope

for the people living here.

In the beginning, at least,
modernity bought prosperity.

Once the railroad arrived,
the highways soon followed.

We're on main
street of st Thomas

and as you can see
it's a big wide road,

enough for horse and
carriage and later automobiles.

St Thomas was one
of the stopping points

along Los Angeles
to salt lake city.

And so, on the other
side of these stumps

we'd have buildings
and businesses

that would have
supported the tourists

that were coming into town,

not just the people that
lived here at st Thomas.

The town was spread
out over almost 200 acres.

It had everything
- stores, garages,

it even had an
ice cream parlour.

Surrounding all this
was beautiful farmland

where feeds of wheat, cotton
and other fresh produce grew.

At its height, around
500 people lived here.

Life was good

and so it seemed were
the prospects for the town.

St Thomas is an
established community

at this point.

It has a school, it
has a graveyard,

it's about the past
and the future,

and then suddenly
that's all about to change.

Walking through the
barren streets today

gives us a sense of what
life was once like here.

But there are also hints
about what caused its demise.

These shells aren't something
you'd normally find in the desert,

you'd normally find
them near the ocean.

But these shells are
found all over the site here

so it's actually a clue to
what happened to this town.

One of the key things
to surviving in the desert

is water.

But it was actually water
that led to the downfall

of this settlement.

A dramatic transformation
was about to take place.

The dry and dusty streets of
st Thomas were swallowed up

by a flood of
biblical proportions.

The rising waters
reached st Thomas in 1938

and filled the streets
and covered the buildings,

and ultimately,

it reached a height of 60 feet
above where the town had been.

The desert town of st
Thomas was no more.

It must have been a
really bizarre thing to watch

because here you are
in the middle of the desert

and suddenly, you're
being flooded by water.

Perhaps the disaster
came as little surprise

to the town's citizens.

After all they'd had
years of warnings.

In the 1920s

plans for one of the most
ambitious construction projects

of the 20th century
had been announced -

the hoover dam.

We're in lake mead, Nevada.

We're near hoover dam at
the bottom end of the lake,

it stretches 85 miles
today to the upper end

where the Colorado
river dumps in.

Local resident
Christopher hentzner

has been navigating
these waters for 40 years.

When they dammed hoover
dam, of course, it filled up the lake

and basically covered the
mountains and the valleys.

Right now we're pushing
400, 450 feet deep.

The lake contains approximately
200,000 to 300,000 acres

of covered water.

Work began in 1931,

the plan was to build
the world's tallest dam.

The idea behind hoover dam

was to harness the
power of the Colorado river.

They would use it
to make electricity,

they would also use
the water for irrigation,

they would make
the desert bloom.

The hoover dam project was
going to benefit so many people

in different states,

but it came at a very
high price to some.

For the people of st
Thomas this was a disaster

on a very personal level,

their homes were going
to be literally washed away.

Ancestors, their
history, their stories,

just covered up
by feet of water.

Trees were cut down,

anything salvageable
was removed from the town.

And as the waters Rose,

the last inhabitants rode
away from their homes.

But if this town
was lost to the deep,

why are its streets today
filled with sand and not water?

The answer is revealed by
the watermarks on the cliffs.

100% full is the
top of the white line,

and today we're at 42% full,

129 feet below that line.

The last time it was full
at the top of the watermark

was in 2000,

but since then it's
been in a steady decline.

Years of drought and
increasing demand for water

have put enormous
pressure on the supply.

As a result the water's
here have receded

and st Thomas is
exposed once again.

St Thomas may have risen again
but it gives us a stark reminder

of the pressing need
to regulate water usage

in an ever expanding
modern world.

The bottom line,
there's not enough water.

It's a finite supply.

It's going to require
conservation on the people's part.

Today water's the most
valuable resource in the desert.

It's the new gold.

In Latvia, in Eastern Europe
is a dilapidated set of ruins

which are falling in to the sea.

It's very strange you know,

you arrive here on the
baltic coast of Latvia,

beautiful and very natural...

..And then you see this
objects littered around the beach

that look almost ufos that have
just kind of dropped on to the beach,

these big wheels
and slabs of concrete.

Here you see large
concrete buildings

and they have broken in half.

It looks as if it's been struck
by a major catastrophe.

Whatever this was they
spent heavily and extensively

to build something vast.

Strange towers,
overgrown bunkers

and other fortifications
are found nearby.

But there's more still.

Further inland there are
entirely different style of buildings

with very different
architecture, much more ornate

but they're also
crumbling, also destroyed.

With this level of
destruction across both sites

clearly something went
very horribly wrong here.

100 years ago a bitter and
bloody battle took place here...

..But all records of it were
somehow erased from history.

Finally, now, the ruins here

are beginning to give
up their forgotten secrets.

At the end of the 19th century

this stretch of coastline
in modern day Latvia

sat on the fringes of
the Russian empire.

These structures were
built with the challenges

of an ever changing
world very much in mind.

1890 the old alliance
Russia is starting to fall apart

and the Russians are
clearly looking at the Germans

as likely future enemies.

The Russian empire is completely
reorienting itself strategically

so you see a complete focus
on defending the baltic sea.

The Russians tsar
chose the port of liepaja

for the new defensive
constructions.

They were supposed to counter
that ever growing German threat.

However time would prove
them to be a grave mistake.

Local expert kristers krafts has
explored every inch of this site.

It seemed on the surface at
least to offer a formidable position

for artillery defences.

What we see here is a
small part of the fortifications

built here along the coast.

This is battery number one,
there are eight on the coast.

This Cannon right here,

it would be on a platform
but rotates left to right

and it could shoot in any
direction at any ships coming on.

The prime position also
meant that a huge force

would need to be stationed
here to man the guns

that would be trained
upon the waters to the west.

The aim was to create the
mother of all coastal defences

that no-one in their right
mind would ever attack.

These are the
northern forts of karosta,

the Russian naval war
port of the city of liepaja.

But this was only one section of
a much larger system of defences

against the inevitable
German attack.

You see the creation
of a big breakwater

that juts a mile into the sea,

that was created so
that you could then

shelter big warships behind it

and then all of these forts
ran out by the break water

and then all along the beach

so that no enemy
fleet could come in,

get close enough to bombard
the port, to blockade the port,

to try to attack the port.

From here the defensive
lines then ran inland.

The tsar's aim was to turn
the port into a fortified city,

the area was vast
14 or 15 square miles

with coastal defences
on the sea front

and on the rest walls and moats,

all of it protected by some of
the most powerful weaponry

that he had access to.

At the heart of this
grand fortress complex

was everything needed
to keep the port operating

and the walls defended.

This fortification
system was huge,

protecting the naval
base, harbour of liepaja

which would station more than
100 warships, some 20,000 soldiers.

There would be housing for them
all, gunpowder storage, laboratories,

training centres,
ship building factories

and so on and on.

But not everything
about karosta was perfect.

The main attraction of the site

was that the port was
ice free all year round,

the danger though
and the vulnerability

even though it's one of
the reasons for it's existence

was it's proximity to Germany.

The fundamental problem
with this is only about 50 miles

from the closest
German port of memel.

You are right on the
front lines if a war occurs

and you don't want to
risk too much of your fleet

right on the front lines.

Karosta took 13
long years to build.

But by the time it
was completed in 1906

it wasn't only it's location that
was giving cause for concern.

Basically, this place was
no longer up to the job

it was supposed to do.

Military technologies
advanced very fast,

faster than anything
else and therefore,

there was no chance
that this fortification

could stand any longer.

Because it was built without
any metal reinforcement

larger more destructive
artillery shells

could now easily
penetrate the defences.

So after just two years of use
it was suddenly abandoned.

When they rethought
their strategy

and they realised that
this was not going to work,

this is reduced to a relatively
unimportant military installation

by the time world war I begins.

Having decided to
abandon the northern forts,

the Russians tried
unsuccessfully to dismantle them

so they were
simply left deserted.

I think eventually, had
the tsar kept this fortress

world war I would have
destroyed it anyway.

I don't think there is a chance

that this would have helped
the Russians if they kept it.

However, that was not the
end of the story for this fortress.

Within a few years it would
be the scene of a bitter battle

that is largely forgotten
by the history books.

The story began in
1915 during world war I

when German forces
stormed through liepaja

capturing the city
and the fortifications.

But the Russian empire was
soon facing far greater problems.

This period was the beginning
of the end of the Russian empire.

The vast losses
sustained in the war

and the tsar's inability
to manage the war effort

led to sweeping changes back
home and the Russian revolution.

The final Germany defeat in
the first world war came in 1918.

Soon after Latvia decided to
strike out for independence.

This movement began
in the capital Riga

but the battle soon came
to the old fortress of liepaja

and here to the redan fort.

This little Latvian army

that's fighting this kind
of triangular conflict

against the, the
Soviets on the one front

and these German troops
coming out of Germany.

So the Latvian army knew
that the Germans are coming,

and they had to get
ready for an attack.

But, the thing is, there were
only about 50 of them here.

There would have to
be at least 100, 200 men

to properly protect this fort.

There should be at least ten
cannons on this fort, they had none.

It was a desperate
situation, to be honest.

With the odds now heavily
stacked against them,

the Latvian army
was forced to retreat.

The Germans duly took the fort

but many German troops
were quickly moved on

presenting the Latvian
fighters with a great opportunity.

So, they knew if
they retake this fort,

they might just manage to
get rid of Germans altogether.

The only way to get
in here is that bridge

and probably there's
German artillery,

probably they're still outnumbered,
they just didn't know that.

They had to take their chances,
use the element of surprise

and just storm in here.

And that's what they
did, not without losses,

but they managed
to take this fort.

A year after the world
war I armistice was signed

the fighting across liepaja brought
an historic chapter to a close.

The Latvians win,
German's withdraw

and the last act of world
war I is actually finished,

the last battle is
actually liepaja.

Ultimately it was not only war
that caused the damage here...

..Time, neglect and nature

have also been great
forces of destruction.

In the end it's 100 years of erosion
that has destroyed these forts,

the ground has been ripped
away from under them by the sea

and now they are simply
crumbling into the water.

Unfortunately for Latvia,
independence was short lived.

The country was
forced under Soviet rule

for much of the 20th century

and the brief story
of it's independence

was simply stricken
from the record.

As a result these structures

have assumed an even
greater importance today.

This part of history was
completely wiped out,

completely rewritten.

And people were
afraid to talk about it,

to talk about it
with their children

in the fear of being deported
for just mentioning these things.

And now we want to
remember all these things,

to make them
known for our people.

200 miles east of Johannesburg,

South Africa's biggest city is
dramatic mountainous countryside.

This desolate landscape
is border region,

this is the mountain range
between Swaziland and South Africa

and there is nothing
here apart from nature.

The mountains are
craggy, it's remote,

it's difficult to access
so if you want to be there,

there has to be a
pretty good reason.

But if you look
very, very carefully,

tucked away in places,
mankind has left it's Mark

and it's not just
planting a flag.

Dotted along the valley

is surprising evidence
of human engineering.

All of a sudden this incredible
construction comes into view.

But we have these pylons,

we have these tall
thin lattice towers

supporting a cable
way, just a few places

you can actually see the
remains of some form of carriage.

There are objects
hanging from the cables,

cars for holding something but
where were they coming from

and where were they going to?

At one end the cables lead up
to a sprawling mountain top site.

Amongst the battered
buildings and rusting machinery

hang numerous eerie carriages.

When humanity makes
its Mark on the planet

we always do it for a reason

and here it's just
hard to make that out,

it doesn't look like
a leisure set up,

it doesn't look like
a military installation.

Whatever it was that merited
this incredible effort of construction,

has to lie the end
of this cable line.

But if it was so valuable
why was it abandoned

and why does this machinery
now stand still on the landscape?

In the late 19th century

gold and diamond prospectors
struck lucky across Southern Africa.

Their impact was
sudden and dramatic.

The discovery of gold and
diamonds changed everything

especially in the
interior of South Africa

which was, which was
very sparsely populated,

mostly by various
indigenous African groups.

All of a sudden you have
Europeans flooding in to the interior

to export this new resource,
they're going to build mines,

they're going to
build railroad lines

and the population of the entire
region is going to boom as a result.

Salon bars, music
halls and hotels

sprung up to service
the swelling population

of the new boom
town of barberton.

Unfortunately the gold
rush here was short lived

and prospectors soon left barberton
to search for gold elsewhere.

But the few diggers left behind

then began to unearth a
very strange substance.

The miners were looking
for tell tale signs of gold

but they found something
else, this white fibrous material.

It would be another
quarter century

before they realised
just how important

this strange fibre would be

and their lives would
be changed forever.

This previously unknown material

would bring yet more
fortune to the region...

..But it came at a deadly price.

It was mined by the
havelock gold mining

and exploration company.

Havelock mine had one of the
wonder materials of the 20th century,

just sitting there underground
waiting to be extracted.

The mysterious fibrous material

that for decades miners
had simply cast aside

was asbestos.

The actual asbestos is
up the top of the mountain,

it can be extracted quite easily

but getting it to a point
where you could transport it

is 20km away,

water's not an option
for transportation,

roads are very, very difficult

so they had to think
in an imaginative way

and, boy, did they.

There are 52 towers
supporting the steel ropeway

and the overall
distance is 20km.

When it was built it was the
longest cable way outside Europe.

On a normal working
day 2,500 bags,

that's about 120
tonnes of asbestos fibre

make this journey
to the outside world.

What a lovely way to go.

Exploring this sprawling
site is local expert Tony ferrar.

The purpose was
to transport asbestos

to the railhead
here in barberton

and coal back to havelock
mine to power the generators.

A critical aspect
of the cable wear

was that you had to
balance the goods coming out

which was asbestos

and the coal going back
had to be exactly equal.

Once you start using
your imagination

and you get your
engineering brain in the game

this is the obvious solution.

Pylons, nice lightweight you
can carry them up the mountain,

bolt them all together,
get them going

and then the cable
way, string that up

and suddenly you have
this moving roundabout.

The materials were
carried in cradles

or coco pans around
the 13-mile loop.

The whole cableway
is about 52 pylons

and it would take a single
coco pan two hours to do the trip.

Behind me are the big sheds
where the asbestos was stored,

it all arrived in 50kg bags

and was exported by
rail truck to Johannesburg.

From Johannesburg asbestos
was exported worldwide

as demand exploded.

Insulation for homes
and electric wiring,

cement, brake pads,
precast panels for buildings,

it's uses were many and varied.

30,000 to 40,000
tonnes of asbestos

was shipped out to around
the world every single year.

For decades, the mine was the
largest single employer in Swaziland.

It's thousands of workers lived in
the small nearby town of bulembu...

..They had no idea what
fate had in store for them.

No-one really knew the
deadly nature of this material

least of all the people who
were mining it at the time.

Asbestos the very,
very fine fibres,

the thing that made it
such an amazing material

also turned it into a killer.

Asbestos contains microscopic
fibres that get into the lungs

and cause cancer and
other really deadly ailments

so the miners were not
only being paid very low

but they were also paying
with their health and their lives

to keep this industry going.

In fact, the dangers of asbestos
had been known for some time...

..But by the 1960s the evidence
could no longer be ignored.

Asbestos producing companies

have long suppressed
the dangers of this material,

the knowledge that
microscopic fibres

could get into people's
lungs and cause cancer

and that was just the people
who were around asbestos,

you can imagine how
dangerous it was for the workers.

As public awareness about the
dangers of asbestos increased,

Turner and newell the British
company that operated the mine was hit

by a wave of
compensation claims.

Even as one of the largest
asbestos companies in the world

they couldn't cope.

Then suddenly this amazing
boom town had no purpose,

the population went from 10,000

to about 600 people
almost overnight.

And today when we look
around this is what we see,

we see the legacy of
huge scale mining operation

with no purpose anymore.

After the mine
finally closed in 2001

Turner and newell entered
voluntary bankruptcy

to avoid compensating the
remaining miners and their families.

It also absolved them
of their responsibility

for paying to clean up the mine

so leaving the hazardous
fibres blowing in the wind.

But happily,

barberton has been given a new
life away from gold and asbestos.

Some of the oldest
and best preserved rocks

dating back millions of years
have been discovered there

and they are providing
an invaluable window

into how the earth evolved in to
a green planet able to support life.

Barberton born out of gold

but now it's future is in the
scientific value of these rocks.

They were laid down at
the time that life began

and there's no bigger
question in science

than how and where did life
begin and that is barberton's future,

it's the scientific value

attracting visitors
from all over the world.

These scientific studies

are promising a very different
and brighter future for this region,

a future based on tourism.

Now they are abandoned
crumbling ruins,

many remind us of dark times

but some were once
beacons of hope and progress,

lasting testimonies
to human imagination,

enterprise and spirit.

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