00:0842 degrees in the shade but there is no shade here our reporter rafael lauer is in the australian
00:16outback his destination a ghost town in the middle of nowhere a highly contaminated place deserted
00:26and forgotten a lost place with a dark history that can still be deadly to visitors today
00:40bitten them in the 60s it was even the largest city in the midwest of australia with just under
00:49one thousand inhabitants an exemplary project then also a glimmer of hope for european immigrants
00:57many germans came here looking for happiness but what they found was death that's because
01:04vietnam is one of the most dangerous places in the world 80 of all people who have ever lived here
01:10are
01:10dead today wearing my safety suit i'm very well protected and yet it is a striking feeling to
01:19walk through a place that has cost so many people their lives the whole thing is very scary
01:30what was going on in this cafe couples in love the waitress running from table to table with coffee
01:37the overweight cook frying bacon i can imagine it vividly but it seems as if they've left
01:44everything behind hastily you don't really feel the danger it looks abandoned but you can't tell
01:57what is supposed to be dangerous here but the danger is everywhere and the city is so heavily contaminated
02:09that the government shut off all basic services in the early 2000s such as water electricity and the
02:16telephone bitumen has been deleted from the maps it ceased to exist the reason can be found on the street
02:24that's what it is this is the corpus delicti that's blue asbestos look at this and it's all over
02:43everywhere blue asbestos this fibrous mineral was supposed to make bitanorm wealthy and rich but in
02:51reality it was their ruin and still does not allow life there today that's what i was told anyway
02:58do you hear that that sounds like an engine maybe a generator
03:11but that can't be possible no one can live in this godforsaken place or can they
03:16do you hear that uh...
03:21perth on the australian west coast three days earlier a reporter found one of the few surviving
03:28inhabitants of vitanim rafael has a meeting with the president of the australian organization against
03:35asbestos related diseases robert boyakovich the native croat like many europeans came to australia
03:42in the 1950s searching for happiness good morning hi nice to meet you thank you very much for having
03:51me um you used to live in wittenorm yeah i used to live with them and i worked there for
03:56about
03:56three months in asbestos mine what brings you to perth 2400 kilometers away well i skype actually
04:04from whitnam you know because once you're there you know you go to be there for six months
04:08on the contract you know and i was very lucky that i was able to escape you know to put
04:13the
04:13problem was was everything more or less you know no accommodation properly no food you see job was
04:19very hard you see intolerable in a lot of dust as early as the 1930s asbestos was already being
04:26mined at wittenorm the fibrous stone was a popular building material because it insulates well and is
04:32heat resistant it was referred to in germany as the miracle fiber from remote parts of europe
04:40workers came over to dig it out of tunnels and separate it from the rock in the mill
04:44without masks or any other protection
04:51even though there were already suspicions of asbestos being dangerous at the time
04:56both in the mine and in the mill microscopic fibers
04:59are created and inhaled by the unprotected workers and residents even years later almost
05:05all of them suffer from a particularly aggressive type of lung cancer which turns terminal within
05:11nine months of diagnosis
05:15one night robert won a few hundred dollars playing poker which he used to convince a truck driver to
05:22smuggle him out of town and take him to perth
05:25today he owes his life to this decision why don't you come with us well it i possibly can't you
05:33see
05:33because if i go to whitnam i would actually show that whitnam is okay to go there our policies can
05:40go
05:40there it's incontaminated it government closed it it's a closed area it's no go area you see and we
05:46actually have at least two people who actually stayed there overnight camping anything on there
05:51or the visit to leoma just for one night of camping yeah
05:58as the consequences of the asbestos dust were being made public
06:02robert was founding an organization that has been helping victims and survivors for over 40 years
06:08he was able to distribute around 1 billion euros in compensation
06:13he doesn't allow rafael to go to vietnam without adequate protection only the safest is safe enough
06:20in addition to the asbestos dust that rafael must not inhale a trip to the outback isn't without its
06:26dangers our reporter is expected to pack 50 liters of water 30 liters of gas and food for at least
06:33two
06:33extra days after so much it was clear to me even if his stories and precautions made me nervous
06:41i'm glad i met robert and didn't simply go there unprepared
06:55it takes 12 hours to drive through the outback hundreds of miles where i don't see a single car
07:03there is nothing here
07:06i wonder why anyone would ever get the idea of coming out here looking for happiness let alone
07:13digging for asbestos all that's waiting here is loneliness
07:22no sign vitter norm not posted on any sign what's this here
07:31tom price
07:35but that's the 134 it must be right here somewhere in this direction
07:42in 2007 the australian government declared vietnam as highly contaminated and revoked its city status
07:50all street signs and map entries were removed 80 kilometers further out in the outback rafael
07:56discovers a junction i think that was the actual access to the mine
08:05a simple sign blocks the way into the mine and details the dangers it would be easy to get around
08:12but rafael decides to keep following the main road and then i think this is it no barrier no fence
08:22only a
08:30but as we know there is no shade here
08:33the heat slaps me in the face but that's frankly the least of my concerns
08:39i'm actually really nervous because i have no idea what to expect
08:44how dangerous is this place really
08:50do you hear that
08:54that sounds like a motor engine maybe a generator
09:04this actually looks like someone's living here hello
09:20all right so what are you up to hello hi yeah we are journalists from germany hi hi buddy hi
09:29buddy
09:30and yeah we were told that are you actually living here yeah since when for how long oh nearly 30
09:40years
09:40yeah and you are you living on your own yeah yeah may i come in and have a look yeah
09:47oh thank you
09:50what kind of a guy must he be to actually live here
09:58so how is life here in pippenheim well i like it yeah yeah but all the people went went away
10:07why did you
10:08stay here well i come after the mine closed and because i like i like i like it here
10:19yeah this is an austrian flag yeah i'm austrian originally really yeah let me introduce mario hartmann
10:28from foralberg his german's a bit rusty but that doesn't stop him proudly showing me his garden
10:38he can really show his pride for it a homemade pool running water a vegetable patch
10:45a solar panel system on the roof a completely bizarre situation i could easily forget that i'm
10:53currently in one of the most polluted places in the world if not for my constant fear of my mask
10:58moving out of position i feel so silly here with a safety suit and a gas mask at 50 degrees
11:06centigrade
11:06and he is here in his flip-flops and without a shirt
11:14but i still think it's the right thing to do even if i am on the verge of having a
11:20heat stroke
11:24i don't want to be rude or um you know because of the mask what do you think about it
11:32well i don't think it's a problem here yeah and i mean i've been here 30 years it's safe here
11:40yeah i
11:41reckon the town is pretty good you know as long as you don't dig dig the spaces up and all
11:46that i
11:47reckon it's all right okay and the big mess is out in the gorge are you just lucky that you
11:56don't
11:56uh get the disease or is it just well it's like cancer some people get it and some don't
12:05no it's not like cancer it is cancer and i don't have to be the one who finds out today
12:11where you
12:11get it here and where you don't but my mask doesn't seem to bother mario at all he proudly shows
12:18me his
12:18city a completely different side of bitanum which gives an idea of what it must have been like here
12:28although the mine closed in 1966 for economic reasons bitanum remained as the largest city in
12:35northwestern australia however the inhabitants of the still heavily contaminated city began to die
12:42of lung diseases many moved away a handful remained it was not until the late 1980s that the government
12:52began demolishing houses and burying them in a large ravine that's when the austrian emigrant mario
13:01centered his chance and began to earn his living as a kangaroo hunter in the area at some point the
13:08last
13:09inhabitants were gone mario stayed and he found a new job we only have to read now now only read
13:17the gauges
13:22today 42.3 so it's not that hot 42.3 is not that hot
13:32well i say that's enough
13:38mario works for the australian weather service twice a day he collects data temperature precipitation
13:45cloud formations he sends them using a satellite phone to the airport in perth
13:51thousand kilometers away mario's information is important for forecasts for air traffic
14:00a surreal scene in the middle of this ghost town a meticulously maintained tidy house
14:07financed with two shifts of 10 minutes work per day
14:12about 850 dollars a month okay
14:18yeah but you have to be here all the time like you have to do it all at all so
14:24no vacation for you
14:24nine o'clock in the morning 365 days a year nine o'clock in the morning and three o'clock
14:30in the afternoon
14:32okay so for me it's very hard to go away see but what did you get do or sick or
14:38well i've just been
14:39the purse and i had to get somebody to come here from tom price to do it look i can't
14:44leave here because
14:45of the power and everything you have to run the power and i got the dog and i got a
14:49rabbit and what do
14:50you do when you break your leg somewhere out into the up back well i already had some problems you
14:58know i dislocated my shoulder and stuff well just somebody i made a morning or whatever has to come
15:05here and then i have to go away but it's that's why i'm not going away that's it i'm usually
15:13always here
15:18once the pride of a region twice as big as germany now a ghost town in the middle of nowhere
15:30bitter norm 80 of all inhabitants have since died as a result of asbestos contamination
15:37only an austrian hasn't been defeated by the town quite the contrary
15:43what do you miss most oh nothing really i reckon there's still too many houses here now
15:49i like it yeah because if we wouldn't have the asbestos there'd be
15:57this be a big tourist thing here there'd be people everywhere and i wouldn't be here then
16:08on my trip to the contaminated lost place i expected a sad intimidating city and that's vitenom no question
16:18i can't wait to leave this place and protection suit behind for mario it's exactly the city in which he
16:26wants to live and thanks to him vitenom is not quite as lost as it seems
16:36you
16:38so
16:45you
16:46you
16:46You
