THIS photo first made me think of the desolation of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. Then, seeing the woman walking through the ruins of her former home town, it made me think of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, set in a post-apocalyptic North America.
What disaster has befallen this place? It is Villa Epecuén, once a thriving and popular tourist town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. People would visit from Buenos Aires to bathe in the apparently therapeutic waters of Lago Epecuén, the salt lake the town was based on. Then changing weather patterns caused the lake to swell.
On November 10, 1985, a dam protecting the town burst and a gradual, seeping flood began. By 1986 the streets were 1 metre under water. By 1991, it was 10 metres.
Finally, in 2009, the waters began to recede. Only one man – 85-year-old Pablo Novak – returned to live there. The image below contrats the town now with its 1970s heyday, showing the changes wrought by the flood.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Back to a drowned town"
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