Turkey Plans to Bury 'Cancer City'

Turkey is seriously considering knocking down and burying the village of Tuzkoy—dubbed “cancer city” because its residents are awfully likely to get cancer. Tuzkoy is surrounded by large deposits of erionite, a mineral found in volcanic rocks that happens to be the main cause of the painful lung cancer known as mesothelioma, the Daily Telegraph explains.

A total of 46 people from the village have developed the disease this year, out of 65 cases in the entire country. The death rate is also 700% to 800% higher in Tuzkoy than it is anywhere else in the world. Authorities have already begun moving the town’s residents to new houses about a mile away—a development they’re calling “New Tuzkoy.” They still haven’t decided whether they’ll go through with burying original Tuzkoy under 13 feet of dirt, or will simply endeavor to keep people away. (More Turkey stories.)