You must be wondering why dying is illegal in a part of the world when it is impossible not to die at all.
Even the greatest of people died so why would it be illegal to die in a certain town?
So, what’s exactly the deal in Longyearbyen the world’s northernmost town in the Svalbard archipelago?.
In this part of the world, death has been banned since the 1950s. If someone’s suspected to be close to dying, they have to be flown back to the mainland.
Here is the reason for the strange state policy;
Prohibition of death is not such a novel notion – in fact, the Ancient Greeks thought it first back in the 5th century BCE, declaring that dying on Delos island was prohibited because it was a sacred space.
Even nowadays, there are a handful of towns around the world that have banned dying, but with the exception of Itsukushima in Japan, the reasons for that are practical, not spiritual.
In the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen, death is banned because of the weather.
Being above the Arctic circle, Svalbard “enjoys” low temperatures that frequently reach 4°F (-15 °C) and have been known to sometimes reach -25.6°F (-32 °C).
What does that mean, besides having to wear insulated coveralls at all times?
It means that the ground, and anything put inside it, is in a state of permafrost – never really thawing, even when the temperatures on the surface rise during the summer. So to put it simply, the dead don’t thaw – or decompose.
When a dead body remains preserved in this area, then it means any disease or virus it carries also remains frozen within and could potentially be a risk, spreading among the population.
This became chillingly apparent in 1950 when the locals realized that the permafrost was preventing the bodies from properly decomposing and, afraid of diseases spreading, they took the town’s graveyard out of commission and outlawed death in Longyearbyen.
And a good thing they did, too. Because when scientists in the ’90s exhumed some of the bodies to study the permafrost phenomenon, they found that in the body of a person who died from the Influenza pandemic of 1918, the same deadly virus was still alive and kicking, perfectly preserved.
Such a virus that had wiped about 5% of the planet’s population back in 1918, if left lying around in that part of the world is like sleeping under a burning roof. Hence, the most logical thing to do was to ban death in such area.
You must be wondering what happens if someone dies in this place, after all, accidents happen and death doesn’t really tell anyone before visiting.
So, in the case where someone accidentally dies before leaving the area, the corpse will be burnt – cremation.
In this part of the world, the sun doesn’t come out for about four months in the winter.
There are polar bears around that can attack if one is caught wandering aimlessly.
The cold in this part of the world can sometimes be so overwhelming that children have trouble moving.
As if the death ban wasn’t enough, cats are also banned from entering Svalbard – so as to preserve the birds of the area.
Living in this part of the world is very demanding as such, very few people can be found there.
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