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A strange ghost town that spent a quarter century under water came up for air again in the Argentine farmlands south-west of Buenos Aires.
Back in the 1920s, a tourist village was established along the shore of Lago Epecuen, a salt lake some 600 kilometers southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The resort town, named Villa Epucuen, soon had a railroad station, and it thrived for several decades, peaking in the 1970s with a population of more than 5,000.
Around the same time, a long-term weather event was delivering far more rain than usual to the surrounding hills for years, residents fled from Epecuen in 1985 when its saltwater lake overflowed its banks after a heavy rainstorm leaving the former bustling little lakeside resort under nearly 10 metres (33ft) of water.
Now the water has mostly receded, exposing what looks like a scene from a film about the end of the world with rusted cars and crumbled homes. The town has not been rebuilt, but it has become a tourist destination once again, for people willing to drive at least six hours from Buenos Aires to get there.
