Caught by Security at Huge Abandoned Steel Factory

Charleroi, Belgium a city whose industrial prowess at one point helped the country become the second largest economic power in the world The extensive coal and steel industry here once brought great wealth to the region But all that's left of it now are mountains of industrial waste and derelict buildings waiting to be scrapped The site we hope to see today is one of the largest in the city, a steelmaking complex of over 400 acres It operated for over a century before running into trouble in the early 2000s The facility had become outdated and its inland location put it at a disadvantage compared to steel mills built near seaports Finally after the global recession of 2008 it shut down for good Now join us as we explore the site and discover what's left If you enjoy coffee you need to check out the sponsor of today's video Trade Coffee Trade is an online service that helps match you with the flavor profile you enjoy from over 50 partner Roasters and over 400 coffees without Trade I would just pick a coffee at the supermarket and hope I liked it But trades flavor profile quiz does a great job at figuring out What exactly you like and matching you with the right coffee. All their coffee is roasted to order so it's always fresh I like to make my coffee using a pour-over and the flavor is fantastic It's possible to make an amazing cup of coffee every time with Trade This is the best deal you can get for coffee of this quality, and Trade is giving the first 100 people who click the link in the description 50% off your first coffee click the link in the description and use the code Proper People. That's pro-per-peo-ple At one point this entire complex was abandoned and it was open season for urban explorers like us Today, however Demolition is well underway on most of the site Therefore our exploration will be limited to a few different buildings in one corner of the property which is so far been spared Well that was suspiciously easy, -yeah Looks like demolition has been going on for quite a bit. There's piles of metal everywhere Guess we'll go for this building first This is an old looking stairwell a lot of disassembled machinery These pigeons are flying all over the place We got the machine shop back here Have got a lot of files left in here. I won't be able to read any of them though, cuz they're all in French He's confused He just blew into the glass Oh my god No He wants out of here No He's trying to get out so desperately It's gonna fuckin die. I could fly in a glass like that, he's like alright, I give up these guys Are not gonna hurt me This building we're entering now was the coal injection plant It was added to the site in the 90s as a means of improving effeciency Its job was to pulverize coal into a fine dust, which would then be mixed with hot air and used in the blast furnace That's a pretty easy entry It looks pretty cool in here What the hell is all that green stuff We've seen stuff like this in other factories Just a deluge of green powdery stuff Well, somebody exploded a paint can Is it paint though? It's probably spray paint someone exploded We saw something like this in Chattanooga though in another factory there. Well, I don't know then that the green Yeah, it looks like it came out of that sack I dunno, looks like some grinder maybe Wow Here's a way up Industrial staircases are always a little bit freaky because you can see all the way down through them Big elevator behind you Probably needs the cart to unlock it We decided to take a quick look inside the water tower and what we found turned out to be way cooler than expected Okay, there's stairs up it That is pretty cool There's a really cool echo in here, too The light coming through the steps looks really cool Plowing through spiderwebs I feel like I'm in some dystopian sci-fi movie right now Think this is as high as I'm gonna go, I don't feel like climbing that ladder fully covered in pigeon shit We've got company If you're wondering what's going on with all the honking; Belgium had just won one of their 2018 World Cup games There's some hooliganism going on over there Yeah, it's been like at least 30 minutes since they won this will probably continue for another now for the rest of the night probably The next area we're checking out is the coking plant Here raw coal was turned into coke a vital fuel for smelting iron ore in a blast furnace This part of the facility was one of the first to shut down and therefore it's in a more advanced state of decay You know, this place is like straight up a huge hazard I'm surprised they haven't demolished it yet Looks like It could collapse at any moment, they ripped out the conveyor belt pathway but the belt is still hanging there That would be a very sketchy catwalk to walk across. Floor is completely missing in parts I think I saw some cool-looking machinery up here Could be anything. -What if it's the security guard? We didn't get seen by anyone -As far as I know See that's the best building over there let's try to get to that one The next building we're heading into is one of the power plants which was fueled in part by gas byproducts from the coking plant next door That's easy enough It's dark To your many industrial locations Just got in and already have a sketchy stairwell This is cool Holy crap, you got to come up here Brian Well this is big It's really pretty how the orange rust and the Korean vegetation complement each other Okay, let's head down and try to find our way into the other building Right now we're in the boiler section of the power plant and we hope to find a way into the Turbine Hall Right there that's how we get in Okay, this is cool in here there's turbines Hopefully no alarms in this building Holy crap, this is cool. Super cool You can see the control room in here but it's locked It looks like a pretty sick control room If Brian and I were paying more attention we might have noticed this oddly placed motion sensor and been able to avoid it but in our excitement of finding the control room we let our guard down They wedged this in here on purpose You can't move that? That's gotta move that Well, we can probably open the door now This is a loud little door This is a good one. Oh, yeah. Holy shit Wow There's a brick there This is behind all the control units The substation is in here This was distribution Usually don't see these built-in doors. Yeah. I mean yeah I suppose It's weird The tile is really cool down here At this point we decided to head back to the Turbine Hall But as soon as we turned around there was a security guard standing right behind us So we got busted again We were just inside and some dude walks in with a flashlight aimed at us nothing really else and he doesn't speak any English But he was very not happy. No he told you were there He just escorted us out and told us if we were ever back on that property The police would be called and we'd be arrested presumably that's what he told us. That's what he said That's what it sounded like in French. Yeah, we're never going back there when he first discovered us though he was, he tried to make us delete all of our footage and yeah, what I did was I went to the format screen and then said everything will be deleted and then instead of hitting Enter I hit cancel and he was just like okay good And then I don't know what Brian just deleted like his last. Yeah. He was looking right over my shoulder So I just quickly deleted the last clip and shut the camera off. Today demolition and cleanup continues on the site However, the heart of the steel mill blast furnace 4 was recently selected for historic preservation If the project goes well, the people of Charleroi will have a great monument to their industrial past as they look into the future Trade coffee today's sponsor is giving the first 100 people who click the link in the description 50% off your first coffee Click the link in the description below and use the code proper people

Channel: The Proper People

Views: 500,502

Keywords: abandoned, urban, exploration, urbex, exploring, proper, people, theproperpeople, blast furnace, steel mill, steel factory, factory, HF4, haut forneau 4, Charleroi, belgium, abandoned factory, massive factory, industrial, ruin, adventure, travel, documentary, photography, abandoned places in europe, abandoned places in belgium, lost place

Id: o4LlZ1eylsw

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019