Romania The Blackest Town In the World

"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.

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.