Atlantis of the Pampa.
Once upon a time, there was a tourist resort called Epequen sitting by a salt lake without an outlet river in the Argentina's Provincia de Buenos Aires. It was victim of a long term multi decade variation in rainfall patterns that was not understood when the town was built. the resort was developed in the 1920's to cater for those bathing in the lake's waters, back in the days when a spa cure was the height of fashion. The town catered partly to Jewish émigrés nostalgic for similar salty water spas still popular by the Dead Sea.
During the 1970's a sustained increase in rainfall in the catchment area that fed it resulted in the town being flooded. The event happened after a 8 day rainstorm in 1985 during which the lake level rose by 8 metres and broke through a dyke, eventually being buried in 10 metres of water. The town was successfully evacuated and abandoned.
In the early noughties, the rainfall pattern switched back into a generally drier mode, slowly uncovering the dead resort, now all covered in a fine white layer of lake salt. In 2013 mostly emerged from the waters for the first time in a quarter century, and its eerie white ruins can now be visited. One of the original inhabitants who returned is now Epequen's sole inhabitant.
Loz
Image credit: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images.
A series of satellite images: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=81976&src=fb http://www.theage.com.au/travel/atlantis-of-the-pampas-20130718-2q5sh.html A photo essay: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/07/the-ruins-of-villa-epecuen/100110/
