The ghost town that was abandoned when the diamonds ran out

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The town of Kolmanskop in Namibia was once one of the wealthiest in the world - its hospital had the first X-ray unit in the southern hemisphere. Now it is buried in the desert.

Diamonds aren't forever
Looking at it currently, it's exhausting to believe this broken-down assortment of derelict buildings was once one in all the wealthiest communities within the world. settled on the southern flank of West Africa’s sprawling Namib Desert, the little city of Kolmanskop has been rescued by the sand. however one hundred years past it had been home to a busy diamond mine.

 Image result for THE GHOST TOWN THAT WAS ABANDONED WHEN THE DIAMONDS RAN OUT

In the town’s time period, the valuable stones were very easy to search out that they may be picked out of the sand. staff armed with jam jars would crawl on hands and knees, filling them with diamonds.

But as resources area unit wiped out, individuals march on. nowadays Kolmanskop sits in an exceedingly restricted zone controlled by the Namdeb Diamond Corporation, a venture owned by Delaware Beers and therefore the Namibian government. 

however with the correct allow, individuals area unit welcome to go to. The sun-bleached town is currently a holidaymaker destination and draws for photographers – the placing pictures a reminder of however ever-changing industries and economies leave their mark on the landscape.

A butcher, a baker
Kolmanskop knew as} when associated ox-cart driver called Confederate soldier Coleman, World Health Organization abandoned his waggon close to the positioning throughout a dust storm. The city eventually boasted butchers, bakers, associate ice manufacturing plant, a post workplace, many bars, a bowling alley, a well-equipped hospital and a hall, wherever opera corporations from Europe would come back to perform.

In 1912 Kolmanskop made one thousand carats of diamonds - a nearly twelve-tone music of the world’s total. The desert floor was consistently scraped clean once new machinery was introduced to recover the valuable stones. large electrical shovels allowed the sand to be shifted a truckload at a time.

Yet by the Nineteen Thirties, the town’s wealth was for the most part depleted. once diamond deposits were found 270km (168 miles) to the south, near Namibia’s border with the African nation, several of Kolmanskop’s miners moved on. The last families abandoned the city to the desert in 1956.

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Strange stones
According to native stories, a railway employee is known as Zacharias Lewala was the primary to discover the wealth hidden in the sand in 1908, once clearing train tracks running through the world from the near coastal city of Lüderitz. He showed the strange stones he had found to his supervisor, August Stauch, World Health Organization was a former worker of the diamond 

company Delaware Beers.
The discovery of those initial diamonds sparked a rush that saw nearly each out there a patch of desert pegged off, as labourers sifted the sand. Kolmanskop sprang up quickly among the rolling sand dunes, home to many hundred European and Namibian miners.

This was the home of the mine's book-keeper. Most buildings were built in a German style

The well-funded hospital had the first X-ray unit in the southern hemisphere

Moved offshore
Diamond mining continues within the region, however, has principally moved offshore, with deposits currently extracted from the Davy Jones simply off the coast many kilometres away.
Mining ships referred to as crawlers drag dredging instrumentality behind them that sucks up gravel from 140m (460ft) down. One ship will cool one,000 sq. metres (10,760 sq. feet) in an associate hour and turn out 350,000 carats of diamonds a year.

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