The world’s deadliest pandemic hit the world in 1918 and lasted until 1920. The Spanish flu was unforgiving, infecting approximately 500 million, or one-third of the world’s population. Today, this plague is mere history, the virus having been eradicated. But what if it wasn’t, and is forbidden death a possibility?
Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost city, a small coal-mining town on Spitsbergen Island in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. With a population of 2,000, this town is the base for tourism in Svalbard, known for it’s views of the Northern Lights.
Longyearbyen was founded by the American, John Longyear, who started the Arctic Coal Company and set up a mining operation for about 500 people in 1996. The settlement was known as Longyear City, or Longyearbyen in Norwegian.
One of the coldest places on earth, the ground is permafrost, meaning the soil is permanently frozen year round. In Longyearbyen, the permafrost ranges from 10-40 meters deep. A top layer melts each summer as temperatures rise above freezing. To prevent flooding and sinking, the town is built on stilts.
But not everything is so easy here. There are no roads outside of Longyearbyen, and roads do not connect the separate settlements. Snowmobiles, called Snow Scooters in Svalbard, are the primary means of transportation. Every year, on or around October 25, the sun sets, and does not rise above the horizon again until around March 8. That leaves the town in 4 months of darkness every year.
In 1918 a flu pandemic hit the world, and infected an estimated 500 million people, approximately one-third of the world’s population at the time, and took the lives of an estimated 20-50 million victims (some reports state an estimated 100 million victims were taken.). There were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain or prevent its spread. In the U.S., citizens were ordered to wear masks, and schools, theaters and other public places were shuttered.
Influenza, or flu, is a virus that attacks the respiratory system. The flu virus is highly contagious: When an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks, respiratory droplets are generated and transmitted into the air, and can then can be inhaled by anyone nearby. Additionally, a person who touches something with the virus on it and then touches his or her mouth, eyes or nose can become infected.
Unfortunately, Longyearbyen was not spared, and many of their citizens were infected and lost their lives. The local graveyard is full of the dead. The graveyard was closed and stopped accepting new burials over 70 years ago because it was discovered that the dead were not decomposing. The permafrost was keeping their bodies perfectly preserved!
Preserved dead is not necessarily a bad thing – so many would love to be perfectly preserved. However, a few years ago, a group of scientists conducted a study on the permafrost phenomenon in Longyearbyen. What they found was shocking. They examined tissue from one of the preserved corpses, and found that the deadly influenza virus was also, perfectly preserved.
What does this mean for the people of Longyearbyen? They are now forbidden from dying within town limits. If you are on old, or on your deathbed, you will be transported to another part of Norway, so that you will not break the law, and can be laid to rest in another cemetery.
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