Man visits abandoned village once home to 500 people and makes 'mind-blowing' discovery

Man visits abandoned village once home to 500 people and makes 'mind-blowing' discoveryA village marked for demolition 10 years ago is still standing – and while developers have big plans, a few people have already moved inCommentsNewsMichael Moran04:00, 17 Apr 2026View 4 ImagesThe village, with its ruined church in the foreground, is completely dwarfed by the mine(Image: YouTube/TheBeardedExplorer )A village occupied for at least 1,000 years now stands totally abandoned after its residents were evacuated. In 2013, the decision was taken to move its 500 inhabitants about two miles up the road to a new town of the same name. The plans were to create a new giant open cast coal mine in the original village.‌But while all of the village’s inhabitants had been rehoused by 2015, the German village of Morschenich-Alt (or Old Morschenich) still stands. The plans for a coal mine have since been scrapped. Instead the nearby Hambach open-pit lignite mine, a 300-metre-deep pit spanning over some 44 square kilometres has been abandoned instead.‌Now there is talk of renaming the village and recreating it as a "village of the future”. However, for now these plans are on hold too and the village – which might one day be called Bürgewald – stands eerily empty, with most of its streets and houses abandoned and being reclaimed by nature. Despite the conditions, a small handful of people have even moved in to the eerie, desolate village.‌Urban explorer Colin, who records his adventures on his Bearded Explorer channel, has toured the eerie “ghost town,” and even chatted to one of its few inhabitants.But as Colin explored the deserted streets, he found one quite unexpected item, and discovered that a large part of the future plans for the village remains unexplained.View 4 ImagesThe church has completely lost its roof(Image: YouTube/TheBeardedExplorer )‌Colin explained: “It's very eerie, it’ll be be interesting to see what they actually do with this place, but I guess...