Transcription
Did you know that there's a town in Malaysia that is actually radioactive? It's the town that I'm standing in right now. Stay tuned, because in this video you will find out how that happened, who's responsible, and how the town looks today. This is Papan.
At first glance, it looks like any other forgotten mining town, but its story is far from ordinary. In the late 19th century, Papan thrived on the riches of tin mining, attracting workers and families hoping for a better future. For decades, the town flourished with shops, schools, and bustling streets. However, everything changed in the 1980s.
A nearby rare earth refinery in Bukit Merah began producing radioactive waste, primarily thorium, a byproduct of rare earth extraction. Seeking a remote disposal site, authorities chose Papan, unaware or dismissive of the long-term consequences. At first, few residents understood the gravity of the situation, but when mysterious illnesses began to surface—cancer cases, birth defects, and other health issues—the truth could no longer be ignored. Protests erupted, and scientific studies confirmed what many feared: Papan was contaminated.
Fearing for their lives, many families had no choice but to abandon the town, and the town slowly became a ghost town. We arrived in the town, and it really looks like a ghost town. Look at all the houses here that are just completely abandoned. There's not much even left of the houses, because only the facades are still standing. So some of the houses still have multiple levels, but you can see inside that all the trees are just growing in it. Let's look. Oh wow, wow! This looks like a bar or something. Yeah, these are new bottles, new bottles. Well, maybe someone was in here drinking. [Music]
Here you can see how everything is just in a complete state of decay, here and completely overgrown by the trees. People just left this here since the 80s, and everything is uh left as it was. There's not much left from the garden. This could have been a very beautiful garden. Wow, what a cute little garden. Yeah, the light is nice now that it's so overgrown. Yeah, it's probably nicer than when it was before. You see all the—it's all like row houses, so all the houses that are next door, they're also all abandoned, and the trees have grown over. [Music] [Music]
It's actually very quiet here. At the beginning of the village is a small cafe, and there's a few visitors, but it's not at all touristic here. I was actually very lucky to find this place, because I found an article online which was in the local language, which I then translated to English. And I think it is not that touristic because it is still quite a controversial topic here. A lot of the problems have not been solved, and a lot of it is also covered up. [Music] Oh, they even have some things hung up for Chinese New Year. Yeah, they just did that this year. I love how they didn't forget about these abandoned houses and they still decorated them. Wow, look at this! This looks like a painting almost, so pristine. Wow, all these roots on the wall, that just looks like a painting. Wow, oh wow, this wow, this just looks like straight out of an Indiana Jones film or something. This is just a setting that uh Disney normally has to build for many, many months. I cannot fathom how these trees just like started there and then engulfed this whole building. This one went beautifully around the window. I think by the time this whole house just crumbles down, all these plants stay in this form, and then you have a house made of [Music] [Music] plants. What is this? Oh wow, this may be a place of barbecue. Yeah, this would be fires where they made food on. Even the cups are left.
It's interesting that this town is mostly a ghost town, but it's not entirely abandoned, because a lot of the houses here are also still inhabited, and they're just in between the ghost town. So like some houses are inhabited, some houses are not inhabited, and they're just spread across each other. [Music] Some of the houses here are completely renovated. Like you see this house here, it has uh the doors closed, and there's some new light bulbs in there, so I think this house is still in use now. But then this one, as you can see, has completely disappeared. There's some trees inside that they're just going all the way through the roof to the [Music] top. I think this was a barber. I can totally see it, with the bar. Yeah, and there's another one there. Can totally see that they would be having to wait here while someone has their haircut here, and then here were all the mirrors, and then here's the opening. So when people drive by here, they can just uh, "Oh, I need a haircut." Someone has their haircut here.
I think this is like some bank document from from 2000, an unpaid fine probably. They were like, "Get out of your house, pay now, or we come and take all your belongings," and he was like, "You can have it." If you want to visit here, I suggest you come soon, because I expect in the next 10 years probably, well, of the houses here will be disappeared like this one here that has just completely been replaced by [Music] nature.
Today, the town is maybe a little bit more lively than normal because it's Chinese New Year, and I can see that at some houses Chinese families have gathered, like here as well. They have put some sweets and treats as a tradition in front of their [Music] house. This is also such an interesting door to close. This, you have to see. It's just very old. It doesn't work anymore, but you have to pull this like this, and then you close the door. Wow. Here the houses were connected. You can see there was like a a connection from this house to that house, and now a tree has grown over it. What? It's also used by Gen. You didn't see him. He scared me. Why? GL in so the darkness in the brown of the wood. Well, he still has a house for sure. Yeah, this house here has a lot of items that are still preserved, like those bookcases are still left, and they even have the table and the chairs all intact. They still have the frying pan left here on the oven. [Music] [Music]
I think this building must have been a school. There's whiteboards here, and I think these are like the toilets from boys and girls. Then oh, and there's some signs here too. Says Peranakan, maybe that means school. It says words here as well. It could also be maybe a doctor for children. It could be, but why I think it's more likely a school, like kindergarten where they can learn words and Malay and then Chinese also. Yeah, that's true. That's true. [Music] There's some very old newspapers here written in Chinese. Wow, but it seems like it's been burnt here. Yeah, I think it's from the humidity. If you can make out anything, maybe my Chinese followers can. I don't even know, am I holding this upside down? Yeah, you [Music] are.
Residents experienced a surge in severe health problems. Cancer cases, particularly leukemia, skyrocketed, while children were born with birth defects and developmental disorders. Many suffered from chronic illnesses, including respiratory issues, skin conditions, and weakened immune systems. Scientific studies later confirmed the cause: long-term exposure to radioactive [Music] thorium.
For people that really like UK's location, this is a dream, because on the edge of the village here is the old house from the village chief, which is a castle and it's from 1896, and it's completely overgrown by plants. Let's go check. This must have been such a beautiful front garden with such a beautiful view over the whole jungle here. Unfortunately, we cannot enter the house here, but maybe we can look through the window here. If this was America, they would have probably already been shot. Yeah, it's a very big space. That's a massive house to be abandoned. Must be very beautiful uh when it was in its full uh full glory. It even says the Islamic year here in Arabic letters. It says 1313. This is the perfect location for a film. I know, right? Yeah, it's like some sort of uh ghost castle.
Here, in between the fields, is an old mosque that was completely out of wood. Everything has become a swamp here. It's very wet to walk here. [Music] This used to be the mosque. Wonder if it's still functional. No, I don't think so. Seeing from the mound of spider webs. Is this then where you would leave your shoes? Yeah, I think so. This is the entrance. Oh yeah, there's still a prayer mat in—that's just a—is that a prayer mat? Yeah, over here there's a window open, so I think if I stick up the camera up here that I can see something. This is also something cool that is hanging [Applause] here. This looks a bit like that Conjuring tree. Interesting. Well, I hope no one hanged themselves here. Well, it's it's the correct atmosphere though, with this uh colonial remnant on the back and then uh well, a musk doesn't necessarily have to do much with it. Why does he even have a musk in the back of his garden because he's rich? What is that sound? What what what what what? It's like a bunch of British lads in a bar be like what. [Music]
To this day, still a lot of the mining goes on, and with that a lot of activism. The locals have started a lot of awareness campaigns, like in this school here, to try to fight the big corporations. In the heart of Papan's tragedy lies a name that sparked outrage: Mitsubishi Chemical Industries, the company behind the rare earth refinery in Bukit Merah. For years, they carelessly disposed of thorium. The radioactive waste was often just left in rusty old barrels with holes or even just out in the open. As a result, waste seeped into the soil and water, leaving devastating health consequences for locals.
Local residents and environmental groups launched a series of protests demanding accountability. What started as local resistance quickly gained national and international attention. After years of pressure, lawsuits, and evidence stacking up against the company, the government and Mitsubishi finally agreed to clean up the waste in the 1990s. A cleanup operation began, one of the largest radioactive decontamination efforts in the region. Thousands of barrels of radioactive waste were removed and sealed in concrete bunkers at a designated disposal site. However, that cleanup was insufficient, and to this day the radioactive waste still pollutes the forests here behind me and with that also the water reservoirs of the people living here.
Despite all this, a small number of people have always stayed in this town, and they live on the outskirts of the town, with some even living in between the abandoned houses. Most of them are from Chinese descent, and today they are celebrating Chinese New Year at the lost remaining local cafe. I got my very local cola, and you got a tea, Chinese tea. This our local drink? Yes, right. They love this small town haven. See this whole building more than 100 years. Yeah, it's very beautiful. Very beautiful. 1800. You can see the 1896. Wow. The one the factory is under Japan, Mitsubishi. So our Malaysian, all G, the fact of course. So they barrel all the rad at the small h there, concrete one. Now uh, until today it's more than 40 years, 40 or 50 years already, but you have lived here your whole life? Yes. Did a lot of people get sick from the from the waste that was dropped here? Most, this one relative is cancer for me. People got cancer, not not too much. The factory there, lot from here to the factory, keep me only 50 minutes, but they bring those rubbish. The rubbish was it cleaned or is it still there? No, it's still there. Yes. Go down here by the there's a small chran and the lake cuz I see that there are two legs. Is it from the mining? Mining is there. Okay. Did you also used to work in mining? Long, my father, China. I think they come and visit us or as a team miner as very Chinese. So last time my grandmother, the first generation, come here work, few people work after they want to send the money. My grandmother, my collect those money from them, go back to China. Some they go back the family there, some no family, they married here. Ah, that was a okay. Okay. See you there. Thank you very much. Nice to meeting you. Nice to meet you. Okay, thank you so much.
Talking with the locals makes it clear how resilient they are, and radioactive waste is not even the only horrible thing they had to deal with over the years. This town was also heavily affected by the Second World War when the Japanese forces occupied here, and that is maybe mostly visible by a story of Cil Katasu, living in Papan during the Japanese Occupation. Cil Katasu became a symbol of resistance, working alongside her husband in their small clinic. She secretly treated wounded guerrilla fighters and provided aid to the anti-Japanese resistance. When her actions were discovered, Cil was captured and tortured but never gave up any information, enduring unimaginable suffering with unwavering bravery. Her story reflects the resilience of Papan's people, who despite facing war, displacement, and environmental devastation, hold on to a legacy of courage and determination to refuse to be forgotten. This is definitely an overlooked story, but however, however, if I walk around in the town here, I see a lot of things that commemorate the Second World War, but I see very little that highlights the radioactive waste, so I think that it's very controversial to this [Music] [Applause] [Music] day.
Some of the houses here have been repurposed in a very original way, like this house here, which is a bird nest farm. So in an earlier video we tried some bird nests, and this is where they get the nest from. The flets, because up there you can hear some sounds, but those are not real birds. Those are the speakers that play the sounds of the birds. Right over there is a sign that says that it's forbidden to fish in these waters, and that's probably because the radioactive waste has been dropped on the mountain surrounding this village, and rainwater that goes over that radioactive waste seeps into these waters. And there's a pool on other side of the village, there's one over there we just saw, and there's also one here, and this one is even bigger. It's here on the side of the lakes that they dumped the radioactive waste. It's on the mountain here. Let's see exactly the [Music] spot. It is here on top of the hill next to the village that you can find this quite controversial place, because this circular uh concrete structure was meant to be used by the Asian Rare Earth plant as their permanent storage facility for their radioactive waste, but luckily through a lot of global effort they managed to succeed that this was only used as a temporary base, but nevertheless there was enough time to contaminate the area here, and it's extra controversial because right next to it is a church, the St Paul the Hermit Church. [Music]
It's crazy to me that a scandal of this scope has not been imprinted in the general consciousness of Malaysian people, like with Chernobyl or Fukushima. And also a lot of the activists here, they are not being heard to this day, because they claimed that a lot of the radioactive waste has not been disposed of properly. After years of protest, the waste was transported to a permanent disposal site in Bukit Klang, where it was encased in concrete bunkers designed to contain the radiation. However, concerns remain about the long-term safety of the site, with environmental groups still questioning if the waste is truly [Music] secure. Activists who fought to clean up Papan hoped its tragedy would serve as a warning, but just a few kilometers away in Gebeng, the Lynas Advanced Materials plant processes rare earth materials and raises fresh concerns about toxic waste and its impact on nearby communities. Papan's story should be a lesson, but corporations must be held accountable before lives and environments are destroyed again.