Villa Epecuén, Argentina: The Resort Drowned by a Broken Dyke

Villa Epecuén was a lakeside spa resort developed in the early 1920s on the shore of Lago Epecuén, about 7 kilometres north of Carhué in the Adolfo Alsina district of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Built around the lake’s intensely salty, mineral-rich water — second in salinity only to the Dead Sea and roughly ten times saltier than the ocean — it grew into one of the country’s most popular therapeutic-tourism destinations.

At its height the town had a permanent population of around 1,500 but could host at least 5,000 visitors, supported by up to 280 businesses — hotels, guesthouses, lodges, shops and bathhouses. From the 1950s to the 1970s some 25,000 tourists came each season, arriving by road and rail to soak in the salt water’s reputed health benefits. It was, for half a century, a thriving and prosperous place.

Villa Epecuén’s downfall came from the lake it depended on. Lago Epecuén sits in a closed basin with no natural outlet, so a long run of unusually wet years steadily raised its level. On 6 November 1985 a seiche — a wind-driven oscillation of the lake — broke a nearby dam and then the dyke protecting the town, and the water rose progressively, eventually reaching a depth of about 10 metres by 1993.

For roughly a quarter of a century the town lay drowned in brine. Around 2009 the water began to recede, exposing a haunting landscape of salt-bleached, skeletal ruins — gutted hotels, a roofless slaughterhouse and dead, white tree trunks — that has since drawn tourists, photographers and filmmakers. One former resident, Pablo Novak, returned to live alone amid the wreckage, remaining the town’s sole inhabitant until his death in 2024.