Brittle Ghost Town

Elderly Josefa Garcia Rojas recently strolled awestruck through a deserted town looking at an old hollowed-out church, standing barren as if sacked by marauders in some great skirmish long ago. But the small town of Potosi had been flooded 26 years ago to make way for a hydroelectric dam. Now a long, hard drought has recovered Petosi from its murky grave like some ancient ship wrecked in a shallow sea bed long ago. Whilst Josefa and others were heartened to see their old church one more time, "there's the creeping sense that all is not well," writes TreeHugger. Adds Reuters: "For most Venezuelans, the El Nino-linked drought that has struck the country this year means inconveniences like power and water rationing. But for some, the extreme dry spell is stirring up bittersweet memories. The Uribante reservoir that feeds a hydroelectric dam here is at its lowest level in decades, and the receding waters have uncovered a village that has been mostly underwater since 1985, when it was flooded."

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