Abandoned Spanish village resurfaces after years underwater

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, November 26

It would be the stuff of legend or fairy tales if it weren’t in fact real. A Spanish village that was abandoned 30 years ago and had since disappeared underwater rose again recently.

Photos of Aceredo, a village near Lobois that was home to a dozen or so families until they were all ejected to make way for a new reservoir, are dramatic. They show abandoned structures, some crumbling, some intact—all of them stark and haunting.

Homeowners had to move on when a Portuguese hydroelectric plant closed its floodgates causing the Limia river to flood the valley where Aceredo is located, UK’s Metro newspaper said in its report.

Communities in five villages in the Ourense province fought hard against eviction but failed, the newspaper reported.

Since then, the village stayed mostly hidden underwater, reappearing only when the Lindoso reservoir’s water fell to very low levels, the Metro said in its report.

This was one of those rare instances.

Cars dot the village, personal possessions lay strewn, and even bottles stand upright in shelves—all ghostly reminders of the life that once was. Water still gushes out of the village water fountain, the report said.

Troubles first began when Spain and Portugal struck a deal to use their border rivers to create the Lindoso dam, the Metro said in its report.  The price: land and homes in five villages in the area—Aceredo, A Reloeira, Buscalque, O Bao, and Lantemil, the report said.

Although initially reluctant, 51 per cent of homeowners in Aceredo eventually agreed to leave, forcing the rest to abandon the village as well, the Metro reported.

Now, 30 years later, Aceredo is the only one of the five villages lost to the reservoir to reappear occasionally.