A picturesque body of water framed by snowcapped mountains, Lake Resia might strike the casual viewer as a beautiful scene typical to northern Italy.

Submerged Italian Village Briefly Resurfaces After 70 Years Underwater

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2021-05-29 03:30:05

A picturesque body of water framed by snowcapped mountains, Lake Resia might strike the casual viewer as a beautiful scene typical to northern Italy. But one structure belies the lake’s strange history: a 14th-century bell tower that bizarrely juts out of the water’s blue-green depths.

The steeple hints at what lies beneath the surface: namely, Curon, an Italian village that was flooded by the government in 1950 to create an artificial lake. Last week, reports BBC News, remnants of the submerged town were once again exposed to the elements after construction crews temporarily drained part of the 72-foot-deep lake, marking the first time the lost village has reemerged in some seven decades.

As Artnet News reports, social media users circulated eerie images of the town’s exposed walls, stone steps, cellars, eroded archways and other features. The temporary dry spell is likely the first of its kind, though Atlas Obscura notes that the lake was marginally drained in 2009 to fix cracks that had formed along the sides of the tower.

The bizarre sunken village sits in South Tyrol, a mountainous Alpine province nestled at the intersection of Italy, Austria and Switzerland. According to a separate report by BBC News’ Bethany Bell, Italy annexed South Tyrol from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1919, at the end of World War I. Most people in the region are native German speakers.