10 European Towns Disappearing Right Now in 2026
Not ancient history. Not centuries ago. This decade. This year. From a village buried by a Swiss glacier to an Icelandic town torn apart by lava, these ten European towns are being abandoned right now — for coal, for copper, for the shifting ground beneath people’s feet, and for the simple fact that nobody young stayed.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Intro
0:55 — 10. Doel, Belgium — The Village Belgium Tried to Bulldoze for a Dock
2:45 — 9. Sveagruva, Svalbard — The Arctic Mining Town Norway Deleted From the Map
4:50 — 8. Geamana, Romania — The Valley Drowning in Toxic Copper Sludge
6:52 — 7. Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy — The Dying City Etruscans Built 2,500 Years Ago
9:08 — 6. Valdeprado, Spain — Eight People Left in a Village Built for Hundreds
10:37 — 5. Lützerath, Germany — Demolished for Coal in 2023
12:44 — 4. Kiruna, Sweden — An Entire City Being Moved Three Kilometres East
14:44 — 3. Brienz, Switzerland — The Village Sitting on a Landslide That Won’t Stop
16:24 — 2. Blatten, Switzerland — Buried by a Glacier in May 2025
18:13 — 1. Grindavik, Iceland — The Town Volcanoes Tore Apart
🔔 Subscribe to Forgotten Europa → https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOXIEZnTJi6hP_is6noaFAw?sub_confirmation=1
In Belgium, Doel sits in the shadow of a nuclear power station, surrounded by the cranes of Europe’s second busiest port. The government tried to clear it for a new dock. By 2020, eighteen people remained. In the Norwegian Arctic, Sveagruva was founded by Swedish miners in 1917. A century later, the Norwegian government closed the mines, demolished every building, and returned the landscape to what it looked like in the 1940s. The last crew flew out in autumn 2023. In Romania, Geamana was a village of four hundred families until copper was found beneath it in 1978. The valley has been filling with toxic sludge ever since — rising roughly a metre every year.
In Italy, Civita di Bagnoregio was founded by the Etruscans over two thousand years ago. It sits on a pillar of soft volcanic rock that has been eroding for centuries. An earthquake took a whole section in 1695. Fewer than a dozen people live there year-round now. In Spain, Valdeprado sits high in the hills of Soria — part of what Spaniards call la España vaciada, the emptied Spain. In 2024, eight people lived there. In Germany, Lützerath was demolished in January 2023 to make way for the expansion of one of Europe’s largest open-pit lignite mines. In Sweden, Kiruna — an entire city — is being physically moved three kilometres east because the world’s largest underground iron ore mine is causing the ground to crack and sink beneath it. The church was relocated in August 2025.
In Switzerland, Brienz is sitting on a slow-motion landslide with two million cubic metres of rock coming loose above it. Villagers were evacuated in May 2023, and again in 2024 and 2025. A few valleys over, Blatten was destroyed on May 28, 2025, when the Birch glacier let go — burying roughly ninety percent of the village. And in Iceland, Grindavik lost almost four thousand people when a corridor of molten rock forced its way beneath the town on November 10, 2023. By summer 2025, nine eruptions had hit the area. The Icelandic state has bought over ninety percent of the town’s homes.
Forgotten Europa documents the places the world forgot: ghost towns, abandoned places, dying villages, and communities being erased across Europe — not in the distant past, but right now.
📌 TOWNS IN THIS VIDEO
• Doel, East Flanders, Belgium
• Sveagruva, Svalbard, Norway
• Geamana, Apuseni Mountains, Romania
• Civita di Bagnoregio, Lazio, Italy
• Valdeprado, Soria, Spain
• Lützerath, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Kiruna, Swedish Lapland
• Brienz, Graubünden, Switzerland
• Blatten, Lötschental, Switzerland
• Grindavik, Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland
#GhostTown #GhostTowns #AbandonedPlaces #GhostTownsEurope #ForgottenEuropa #UrbanExploration #Urbex #DyingTowns #AbandonedEurope #CivitaDiBagnoregio #Grindavik #Kiruna #Doel #Geamana #Lützerath #Brienz #Blatten #Valdeprado #Sveagruva #ForgottenHistory
1 Comment
Grindavik is the one that stays with me — almost four thousand people given a few hours to pack their lives, and now the government owns ninety percent of the town. But the one that genuinely surprised me was Sveagruva. Norway didn't just close a mine. They deleted the entire town — buildings, roads, airport, everything — and returned the land to Arctic grass. Of these ten places, which one did you not see coming? And if you know of a town emptying right now that didn't make this list, tell me below — because I'm already researching the next one. ⬇️