Residents of a town in Texas say they are being 'tortured' by debilitating health problems triggered by the deafening humming sound of a local Bitcoin mine.

Some of those living in rural Granbury, 40 miles outside Fort Worth, have told of heart problems, fluid leaking from the ears and fainting spells linked to the mine.

One five-year-old child was even sent to the ER after suffering extreme pain in her ears that she described as a, 'red beam behind her eardrums'.

Now, experts fear this bleak picture could be repeated across hundreds more rural towns in the US as the Bitcoin mining operations expands.

A Bitcoin mine is a massive facility equipped with tens of thousands of high-powered computers that sift through codes to find lucrative Bitcoins.

The machines are housed on sites in large metal crates that look a bit like shipping containers. The machines generate heat that is countered by fans, which can be extremely noisy.

This noise can be as loud as 90 decibels (dB) in the surrounding neighborhood, which is equivalent to a chainsaw, blender or hair dryer running continuously.

The CDC says that being exposed to sounds at this level for more than two hours can cause permanent damage to the eardrums. It also says that for people to sleep, noises should be below 30 dB — about the sound of a whisper.