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TIME: Almanac 1990s
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1994-03-25
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<text id=90TT0666>
<title>
Mar. 19, 1990: Romania:The Blackest Town In The World
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
Mar. 19, 1990 The Right To Die
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
WORLD, Page 34
ROMANIA
The Blackest Town In the World
</hdr>
<body>
<p>For miles and miles, every thing and creature in his once green
valley is veiled in soot
</p>
<p> "It took several hours for me to realize that I was still
standing on the planet earth," says photographer Anthony Suau,
recalling his trip last month to Copsa Mica. "It was as if a
gigantic bottle of ink had spilled on the town." Copsa Mica's
chief industry is tire production, and 24 hours a day its
smokestacks heave out noxious, coal-based clouds that cake
faces and fingers, cars and houses, grass and trees with
endless soot.
</p>
<p> Babies are born with malformed hearts, children suffer from
bronchial asthma, and adults struggle with lead poisoning.
Suau's stark photographs are but one glimpse of the anguished
land left behind by Nicolae Ceausescu, who put Copsa Mica (pop.
6,000) into industrial overdrive. Situated 150 miles northwest
of Bucharest, the town is in the county of Sibiu, which was
once governed by the late dictator's son Nicu. Likely to go on
trial within the next few months, Nicu could receive life
imprisonment if convicted. A more appropriate punishment might
be to sentence him to spend the rest of his days in Copsa
Mica.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>