Lost Italian Village Curon Emerges From Local Lake After 70 Years Underwater

For around 70 years, the village of Curon in Italy has been submerged by Lake Resia in the South Tyrol. Things have changed since repair works started in the area and the lake was drained. Once a village of more than 100 people, it emerged into daylight to astonish locals and netizens.

Back in the Fifties, local authorities decided to build a dam and create a hydroelectric plant in this area. Despite the objections of residents, two nearby lakes were merged and the village was covered.

Some of the villages’ residents went off to seek their fortune abroad but a bunch of them decided to stay in the newly created village nearby.

Check out Sputnik’s photo gallery to find out more about the underwater village.

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In the 20th century, Italy was not the only country to flood villages to build dams and create plants. During the Thirties, many villages were wiped out in preparatory work for the construction of hydroelectrical plants. This was the price nations paid for modernisation.

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The old church and village were submerged in 1950 by an artificial lake created to power a hydroelectric plant. Only the tower of the 14th-century church was still visible.

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Would you have the guts to look inside?

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Every corner of this village is filled with desolation. Its inhabitants were displaced to new homes, and Curon was flooded for the sake of hydroelectricity.

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Netizens have recently started posting photos of what seem to be old walls, and cellars in the "underwater" village.

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Remains of steps are seen on a picture taken in the middle of drained Lake Resia.

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An aerial picture taken on 9 July 2020 in the museum of the new city of Curon Venosta (Graun im Vinschgau), some 100km north-west of Bolzano, northern Italy, shows a photograph of Curon's old bell tower as it was before being submerged in lake Resia.

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A picture of the entrance to a basement that is still partly submerged.

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Repair works at the area offered locals a glimpse of the remains of Curon village.

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An aerial picture taken on 9 July 2020 in the new city of Curon Venosta (Graun im Vinschgau), about 100km north-west of Bolzano, northern Italy, shows the bell tower of Curon's old church poking above the surface of lake Resia. The church and village were submerged in 1950 as an artificial lake was created to power a hydroelectric plant.