Atlantis today: Villa Epecuen, the city that has been under water for 25 years

These photos show the remains of an old tourist town in the Buenos Aires area of Argentina called Villa Epecuen. It was founded in the 1920s, on the shores of a salt lake, and was home to about 1,500 people.Every summer season, 20,000 tourists visited the place. The city was in high demand because the water in the lake had therapeutic properties and was about ten times saltier than sea water, so tourists loved to bathe here; due to the extremely high salinity, people floated effortlessly on the surface of the lake.

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Photo: onedio.com

In 1985, a dam collapsed due to heavy rains. Therefore, a water wave of a few meters swept the streets of Villa Epecuen. Initially, people climbed on the roofs and waited for the water to recede.

But the water remained… So the people abandoned the sunken city. The waters began to recede only in 2009, revealing a once underwater and slightly sinister world, as can be seen from the images.

Photo: taringa.net

Photo: vice.com

Photo: lazerhorse.org

Photo: lazerhorse.com

Today, Villa Epecuen is a sad ruin

Photo: pinterest.com

Photo: ecoleaks.com

Photo: corriere.it

Photo: lazerhorse.it

Amazing is the fact that one of the old inhabitants lives today in the abandoned city. Pablo Novak was the only person to return to Villa Epecuen when the waters began to show signs of receding in the 1990s.

Today, the man lives in a hut, where he has a refrigerator and a stove and spends his day walking among the ruins. Probably not in vain is he considered "the only man in Argentina"…