The final reminders of one of Australia's deadliest towns will soon be dismantled and buried.
The people are gone but the memories and stories of Wittenoom will remain, forever linked to deadly blue asbestos that killed an estimated 1,200 residents and miners.
But it is also the home of happy memories where children were raised and people enjoyed their lives in the red dirt at the centre of Western Australia's Pilbara region.
Olga Soter, 94, lived in Wittenoom for 45 years, arriving when the town was in its heyday in 1950.
Born in Austria, Mrs Soter arrived in Australia with her husband and children in search of a new life.
They found it in Wittenoom.
"It was filled with magnificent gorges and great scenery," she said.
"My husband had fallen in love [with the town] and he worked towards making us comfortable.
"We had a lovely, lovely little place."
The former mining town is officially closed and has been completely empty since the final resident, Lorraine Thomas, was evicted from her home by the state government last week.
Mrs Soter said there was never talk in the town about the disastrous consequences of asbestos mining, which operated there from the 1930s to 1966.
"We were never told; we would not have gone there if that would have been the case.
"They should have never, never ever have built a town there."
Death in the dust
Wittenoom's roads were paved with asbestos tailings from the nearby mines and workers went home covered in a layer of deadly dust.
Children played in the lethal mineral, and some even stuffed it in their mouths as a substitute for chewing gum.
Many of Valma Mlodawski's friends and family died due to mesothelioma and other similar diseases.
"Asbestos affected everybody from the youngest child to the oldest person."
Tragedy also struck Mrs Mlodawski personally when her baby daughter, Tania, died in 1958 shortly after she was born prematurely in Wittenoom.
"She only lived two hours," Mrs Mlodawski said.
"We weren't close enough to medical intervention to try to keep her alive. It was too remote."
Mrs Mlodawski's time in Wittenoom is a snapshot of the conflicting emotions that are central to the town's story.
She remembers it fondly as a beautiful place and community.
"We made our own fun, mostly parties, mostly at private houses until the power went off at midnight and then you went home. There were a lot of families there."
Despite the pain inflicted on her family as well as the community, to this day Mrs Mlodawski would like to visit the town and her daughter's burial site.
"It was a beautiful place of scenery and everything was lovely. It was good things as well as bad with great people."
Close call in mine collapse
Peter Holdsworth was 19 when he arrived in Wittenoom in 1962; a friend had told him he could earn big money working in the mines.
It almost cost him his life, but it was not asbestos that threatened Mr Holdsworth.
He was working underground when a shaft at the Colonial mine collapsed, nearly trapping him in the earth.
"You could hear the rocks cracking and pinging from the walls and it was as though they were speaking to you," he said.
"All of a sudden the ceiling above them came down.
"The next pile of ceiling came down and it picked me up like a rag doll and just tossed me.
"I didn't know if the light was on or off because I could see nothing, the dust was that dense."
Mr Holdsworth said rescue crews spent eight hours getting all of the workers to the surface.
"Men were crying waiting for their brothers and loved ones who were still trapped underground."
'Happiest times' at Wittenoom
When Helen Osborne arrived in the town to start teaching at the school, the asbestos mines were already closed and Wittenoom's long decline was in motion.
But Mrs Osborne described her stint there as "a happy time" and remembered a vibrant school with three teachers and about 100 students, as well as a bustling and busy community.
"There were dances held quite frequently for various reasons. The Wittenoom races were very big," she said.
"Lots of friendships, people coming and going. We were just busy busy the whole time."
Mrs Osborne left Wittenoom in 1985 when the school's enrolment dropped to a handful of students and the government decided to close the campus.
She has no regrets about her time in the town.
"It was probably the happiest time of our lives that 15 years. We just had a marvellous time."
However, the asbestos risk that came with living in the area is never far from her mind.
"I'd be silly if I didn't pay heed to the fact that I was exposed," she said.
"My husband was exposed, our children were exposed, but we didn't know of the dangers for most of that time."
Notorious legacy will survive
While Wittenoom's time has come to an end, the legacy of its three mines operated by tycoon Lang Hancock and Colonial Sugar Refining will live on.
Three million tonnes of asbestos tailings still scar the landscape, spoiling 46,500 hectares of previously pristine country.
It is the largest contaminated site in the Southern Hemisphere, but no government has committed to cleaning up the asbestos.
WA Lands Minister John Carey has downplayed the prospect of a total clean-up and previously said it was unlikely the area would ever be safe to visit.
More than 70 years since Olga Soter arrived in Wittenoom, her mind is made up on who should take responsibility for rehabilitating the land.
"We had tried the government many times to do at least a nominal clean-up," she said.
"It's been a huge problem for them but they cooked it up themselves. They should never have built it in the first place, but it's too late."
