Urban explorers from the Exploring With Fighters YouTube channel were astonished by the "overwhelming" finds in the deserted Italian town of Fossa, which was evacuated in April 2009 after a catastrophic earthquake triggered fears of a mountainside collapse.
"I'm not joking when I say it feels like the city itself is heartbroken," remarked Dan, the team leader. "It's just an overwhelming feeling."
Homes Frozen in Time
The explorers' video shows a home where a dining table is still laid, with kitchen drawers pulled open during a desperate hunt for valuables before inhabitants fled. Dan also stumbled upon an old-fashioned pram and a child's bicycle, abandoned in the pandemonium.
Fractured walls testify to the earthquake's force, which registered over 3.5 on the Richter scale, with structures dangerously close to collapse. "I don't think I even want to go upstairs in this place," Dan observed while entering a property almost split in two by the catastrophe.
Calendar Stuck in Time
In another haunting discovery, a calendar remains undisturbed since that tragic April evening in 2009. Families would have been forced to grab their children from their beds and hurry them into the night's darkness as the ground shook violently beneath them.
The ancient church stands precariously on the brink of collapse, with even the faintest tremor from the neighbouring fault line risking sending it tumbling down the hillside. "Because a lot of the buildings built up here don't use reinforced steel, they just started cracking and crumbling, and they got a call in the early hours of the morning that there was going to be a serious earthquake and everyone had to evacuate forever," Dan revealed.
20,000 Residents Evacuated Overnight
"There were 20,000 people. When you read the stories online it is heartbreaking – there are stories of people dragging their kids out of beds as the walls are falling in," Dan added. Houses stand deserted, still packed with personal possessions such as pot plants and televisions, all blanketed beneath a thick coating of dust, with numerous ceilings having collapsed after years of abandonment.
Dan came across a shop that had been completely looted, yet strangely, a handful of beer bottles and Fanta cans, out of date since 2009, remained perched atop one of its fridges.
Nature Reclaims the Town
The town centre cuts a haunting figure, reclaimed by nature as branches and vines snake through shattered windows and push up through cracked pavements. Nestled on the hillside, the town boasts homes with picturesque balconies overlooking the valley below, though Dan cautions visitors against the risk of venturing out onto them.
Dan compared Fossa to Fukushima, the Japanese settlement devastated by a catastrophic earthquake in 2011, which triggered a nuclear disaster at the neighbouring power plant. That incident also prompted a massive evacuation, uprooting more than 100,000 residents.
