Drowned Towns
Mysteries and other fiction with a featured element of intentional submerging, inundating, and flooding
of towns, villages, cities, and other places as a consequence of
building dams and reservoirs for water supply, hydroelectric power, irrigation,
flood management, and job creation. The core of this list was developed
by a retired librarian in Pennsylvania, with additions by members of DorothyL and
FictionL in August 2006. The apt term "Reservoir Noir" comes from crime
novelist Peter Robinson.
Following the list of books is a partial list of real drowned towns, most in the U.S.
Please note that not all of these books are owned by Waterboro Public Library!
Check the WPL Online Catalog
to see what we have. Patrons can interlibrary loan titles not available at WPL, and everyone can buy these
books through ABEbooks, AddALL,
and other used and out-of-print book dealers.
Some descriptions are taken verbatim, or in essence, from review sources such as Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal,
and from booksellers' descriptions.
Alan Dipper
- Drowning Day (1976): "The calm of a small Welsh town
is shattered by the threat of annihilation. A vast reservoir already exists, poised three hundred feet
above its rooftops, and now politics and greed demand that the valley itself should
be flooded to provide water for new towns and industry. A tide of violence sweeps
in from outside, and the people prepare to fight for their future." Listed in
Allen Hubin's Crime Fiction II. 207 pp.
Eileen Dunlop
- Valley of the Deer (1989): Young Adult. Set in Scotland. In 1964, 14-year-old Anne
is living in a valley near Dumfries that is about to be flooded to make a
reservoir, while her archaeologist parents excavate an ancient burial mound. When she finds an old
family Bible behind a secret door in her house, she's led on a quest to solve the mystery
surrounding the death in 1726 of a young Scottish woman, Alice Jardyne, accused
of witchcraft. 139 pp.
Lee Harris
- Christening Day Murder (1993): Set in New York state. Thirty years ago, the inhabitants of
Studsburg, N.Y., relocated when the town was flooded to create a reservoir. Now that
drought has left the small town temporarily high and dry, former nun Christine Bennett (in town for
a baby christening) discovers the remains of a young woman hidden in the Catholic church
(from PW review). 213 pp.
Reginald Hill
- On Beulah Height (1998): Set in Yorkshire, England. Dalziel and Pascoe mystery. Fifteen
years ago, the village of Dendale suffered double tragedies: three children were kidnapped, never
to be found, while a fourth barely escaped with her life. Then the government
forced the villagers to evacuate Dendale so they could flood its homes and shops
to create a new reservoir. Now, a seven-year-old girl from Danby, the village
where most of the Dendale's inhabitants retreated, disappears (from Booklist review). Excellent. 374 pp.
James D. Landis
- The Taking (2003): Set in Massachusetts. Swift River Valley is doomed: set to disappear beneath the
waters of the Quabbin reservoir. Jeremy Treat is the town minister, a man of deep
faith trying to inspire hope in a place destined to be taken from its inhabitants. He
is also the husband of Una, a voluptuous eccentric pining for her first love, and father of
Jimmy, a seemingly perfect child prodigy. Into this tight-knit family comes Sarianna, a
romantic student obsessed by the story of the Valley. Her ensnarement in the secrets
and desires of the Treat family is the basis for this stunning gothic novel of sexual awakening, shifting identity,
loss and love. Published in the UK as The Valley (2006).
Jane Langton
- Emily Dickinson Is Dead (1984): Set in Massachusetts, at a poetry symposium in Amherst.
Describes the 1939 flooding of the towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott to create the
Quabbin Reservoir. One of her characters stuffs a body down Shaft 12 on the Hardwick shoreline
of the reservoir. 247 pp.
Julia Wallis Martin
- A Likeness in Stone (1997): Set near Oxford, England. A killer strikes again
when long-dead victim Helena Warner surfaces from the bottom of a reservoir, and her
three closest friends continue to maintain an eerie silence as Bill Driver tries to uncover their
dark secret. Excellent. 280 pp.
Sharyn McCrumb
- Zombies of the Gene Pool (1992): Set in eastern Tennessee. Mystery/science fiction. In the
1950s, a group of eight young men buried a time capsule containing their science fiction stories and other artifacts
of the time. A dam was later built on the Watauga River, and a lake, Gene C. Breedlove Lake (known
as the Gene Pool), formed over the place where the time capsule was buried. Now the lake
must be drained for dam repairs. Since some of the eight men, who are now elderly, have
become famous, the time capsule will be dug up. A writer who was supposed to have died 30 years earlier
shows up, and when he is killed, science fiction writer Jay Omega sets out to discover who
the killer is. 274 pp.
Michael Miano
- The Dead of Summer (1999): Set in Connecticut. New York TV writer Michael
Carpo vacations annually in the small town of Bridgewater, Conn., at the house of his friend,
elderly African-American writer Jack Crawford -- but this year Carpo arrives to find him dead. It looks like suicide,
but then Carpo learns that the village's older residents are dying at a suspiciously fast clip.
The deceased, it turns out, are all linked to a ghost town submerged by a recently constructed lake.
Carpo must find out who wanted them dead, and why, before the last of the lost town's survivors
disappear (from PW review). 224 pp.
Ron Rash
- One Foot in Eden: A Novel (2002): Set in Seneca, South Carolina. This debut novel combines
a murder mystery with the occasion of the flooding of a South Carolina Appalachian valley by Carolina
Power. The real Santee-Cooper Reservoir is mentioned. 240 pp.
Rick Riordan
- The Devil Went Down to Austin (2002): Set near and under Lake Travis in Austin. As Riordan
says in an interview: "When Mansfield Dam was built, and they flooded the area,
you think that it all washes away, but it doesn't. There really are pecan groves
down there still, and they say they even have the pecans on the trees -- the
last pecans they ever grew. And barbed wire fences. What the land was like until
it was taken and flooded." The book includes the description of a dive into
the preserved pecan orchard at the bottom of the lake.
Peter Robinson
- In a Dry Season (1999): Set in Yorkshire, England. When a drought drains the local Thornfield Reservoir, uncovering
the long-drowned village of Hobbs End and the skeleton of a murder victim from the 1940s, Detective
Alan Banks and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabot investigate the decades-old crime, with quite a bit
of WWII ambiance and history involved. Excellent. 422 pp.
Lisa See
- Dragon Bones (2003): Liu Hulan, an agent for China’s Ministry
of Public Security, and her American husband return to investigate murder and
archaeological theft at the Three Gorges Dam, one of the most beautiful and
controversial places on earth. When completed, the Three
Gorges Dam will be the most powerful dam ever built and the biggest project China has
undertaken since the building of the Great Wall. Yet, the reservoir formed by the dam will inundate
over 2,000 archaeological sites and displace over 2 million people. 368 pp.
Paul Somers (aka Paul Winterton)
- Broken Jigsaw (1961): Set in England. An adulterous couple murder her
rich husband and hide his body in a sinkhole that's about to be covered by
the reservoir that will also drown the village of Alton. Two years later, a
drought causes the reservoir to recede and the body must be retrieved and rehidden --
but in the meanwhile a nearby cottage has been rented by a writer who never seems to
leave it and who is sure to observe such activities.
Julia Spencer-Fleming
- Out of the Deep I Cry: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (2004): Set in upstate NY. Crime novel that intertwines storylines
from the 1930s, 1970s, and present. The 1930 storyline involves the building of the Conklingville Dam and the flooding
of forty square miles of the Sacandaga River Valley, creating the Great Sacandaga Lake as well as Stewart's Pond, which is a focus
of this story. When the flooding occured, many residents of the area were relocated to fictitious Miller's Kill, where
this series is set. 336 pp.
Donald Westlake
- Drowned Hopes (1990): Set in upstate New York. John Dortmunder's ex-cellmate,
Tom Jimson, asks Dortmunder's help in reclaiming a $700,000 stash from an old robbery. The cash was
buried in an upstate New York town that was subsequently flooded to become part of New
York City's reservoir system. Jimson's plan to blow up the reservoir dam will doom nearby towns, so Dortmunder must
concoct a more humane solution (from PW review). 418 pp.
John Morgan Wilson
- Rhapsody in Blood: A Benjamin Justice Novel (2006): Set in California. In 1956, glamorous film star Rebecca Fox
was murdered in the Eternal Springs Hotel in the Calif. desert. A young African-American man was blamed for the
murder and was lynched by an angry mob led by the KKK, though new DNA evidence indicates that he may have
been innocent of the crime. The government has since damned the valley for hydroelectric power and the waters of
Lake Enid now cover the town where the viscious killing took place. Benjamin Justice accepts an offer from a
reporter friend to spend a relaxing weekend at the Haunted Springs Hotel and becomes involved in both
the old murder and current-day danger. 288 pp.
Stuart Woods
- Under the Lake (1987): Set in Sutherland, Georgia," a charmingly reconstructed town
on a man-made lake." Investigative reporter John Howell becomes obsessed with the dark secrets
of a local family that vanished after their farm was flooded a quarter-century earlier. 281 pp.
Andrea Barrett
- The Forms of Water (1993): Set in Massachusetts. At 80, Brendan Auberon, a former monk, is
confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. His last wish is to see the 200 acres of woodland where
his family home once stood. Half a century ago, the owners of the land were evicted from their homes and
the land was flooded to create a reservoir which would provide water for the big city. Brendan convinces his staid
nephew Henry to hijack the nursing home van to make this ancestral visit.
Berlie Doherty
- Deep Secret (2004): Young Adult. Set in England. Haunting novel about twins and generations in a village
which is to be flooded to create a reservoir. Based on real events of the flooding of the
small villages of Derwent and Ashopton in north-west Derbyshire to make way for the
building of the Ladybower reservoir supplying water to Sheffield, Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. 264 pp.
Ivan Doig
- Bucking the Sun (1996): Set in northwestern Montana. A Depression-era narrative largely devoted to
the problems of building the Fort Peck Dam, which created a reservoir 135 miles
long, provided flood control and was the biggest earth-fill dam in the world at the time.
It focuses on the fictional Duff family and their roles in the mammoth dam project, and in the
process describes the working conditions and way of life of the thousands of workers hired
to construct the Fort Peck Dam, many of them homesteaders from upriver farms destined to disappear
under the waters of the newly formed Fort Peck Lake (summary from Wikipedia). There
are two murders, but the book is not essentially a mystery. 412 pp.
Sarah Hall
- Haweswater (2002): Set in Cumbria, England. Won UK's Commonwealth Prize. Debut novel is
set in 1936 in remote Marsdale village in the Lake District, and tells of the flooding of the
dale to make way for a reservoir, against the wishes of many of the local hill farmers. When
Waterworks representative Jack Ligget from industrial Manchester arrives with plans to build the new reservoir,
he brings the much feared threat of impending change to this bucolic hamlet. And when he
begins an intense and troubled affair with Janet Lightburn, a devout local woman, it leads to scandal,
tragedy, and remarkable, desperate acts.
Mollie Hunter
- The Walking Stones: A Story of Suspense (1970; illus Trina Schart Hyman). Ages 9-12. Set
in the Scottish Highlands. Paranormal thriller. After receiving the gift of Second Sight from his old friend,
the Bodach, ten-year-old Donald becomes responsible for safeguarding the ancient power of the walking stones before their glen is flooded
by a hydroelectric company. 143 pp.
Jackie French Koller
- Someday (2002): Ages 9-12. Set in Massachusetts. Fourteen-year-old Celie lives in Enfield,
Mass. in 1938 and her town, along with three others, is to be flooded to create a reservoir. All
the families have to move from their homes, but Celie's Gran refuses to do so. Celie's mother is
angry with Gran and says she should face reality, but that's because Celie's mother is a city
girl and really wants to leave. Based on the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir. 224 pp.
Kathryn Lasky
- Home Free (1985): Young Adult. Set in Massachusetts. Fifteen-year-old Sam Brooks and his mother
have moved to her hometown in New England, mourning Sam's father, who died in a car
crash. Sam soon involves himself with a project to introduce eagles to an 'accidental wilderness' that
exists because an entire valley, including four villages, was flooded to create a reservoir, forcing
many families to relocate and leave their pasts behind. His work to save the wilderness
helps an autistic girl return to reality and reveals her strange hidden power. 245 pp.
H.P. Lovecraft
- "The Colour Out of Space" (1927): Spooky science fiction. Set in Massachusetts. Forty years ago, a strange
meteorite struck the town and farms of Arkham, Mass. Since then, nothing grows right here (inedible fruits, anatomically
incorrect animals, oddly coloured plant life, a sort of phosphorescence in the air), and people
have malaise, insanity, bad dreams.... Something is sucking life itself out of everything in the area,
and its reach is growing larger and larger. Now, the entire blighted area will be flooded and the
citizens of Boston will be drinking water from the created reservoir. The
entire story is online.
Sue Miller
- The World Below (2001): Set in Vermont. The Quabbin Reservoir and Harriman Reservoir are not
central to the plot but are mentioned seven times between pp. 209 and 270.
Michael Shea
- The Color Out of Time (1984): Science fiction. Set in New England. Homage to
Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space." The flooded New England valley made a beautiful
holiday spot, with twenty miles of secluded lakeshore. But visitors Gerald Sternbruck and Ernst Carlsberg soon realise
that the still waters of the lake conceal a frightful evil that preys on flora,
fauna, and human beings.
William F. Weld
- Stillwater (2001): The story of fifteen-year-old Jamieson, a farm boy who finds
first love with the unforgettable, dreamy Hannah. At the same time, life as he knows it is
unraveling around him, as his town and four neighboring towns will soon be flooded to create a huge
reservoir. Written by a former Mass. governor. 240 pp.
Jane Yolen
- Letting Swift River Go (1992; illus. Barbara Cooney): Ages 5-9. Set in Massachusetts.
Relates Sally Jane's experience of changing times in rural America, as she lives through
the drowning of the Swift River Towns in western Massachusetts to form the Quabbin Reservoir. 32 pp.
Note: The plot of the horror film "In Dreams" (Dreamworks, 1999), set in New York state, involves a town that
25 years ago was flooded to make way for a new reservoir. The killer claims to have been chained
to a bed in the town when it was flooded. He's now a grown man who goes around the
thick woods, stealing little girls and then killing them. It stars Annette Bening, Aidan
Quinn, Devon Borisoff, Robert Downey, Stephen Rea, and is directed by Neil Jordan. It's based rather loosely
on the book Doll's Eyes by Bari Wood (1993).
Alabama: the town of Irma, under Lake Martin
Arizona: Alamo Crossing, a mining town now under 100 feet
of water in Lake Alamo; town of La Laguna, under Mittry Lake.
Arkansas: Several towns, including Miller, under Greers Ferry
Lake on the Little Red River (1959-1962); the town of Custer by Norfork Lake; the
town of Fir by Lake Ouachita; the town of Hand by Norfork Lake
California: Hetch Hetchy Valley, a glacial valley in Yosemite National
Park in California, was flooded in 1923 by O'Shaughnessy Dam, forming the Hetch
Hetchy Reservoir; Jacksonville, near Sonora, under Lake Don Pedro; Melones, near Sonora, under
New Melones Lake; Monticello, near Napa, evacuated for Lake Berryessa Reservoir, and Redbud
Park inundated by same; Heroult, Kennett, Baird, and Copper City, for Lake Shasta in 1944; the town
Lorraine by Thermalito Afterbay; the town of Minersville by Clair Engle Lake; the town
of Pleyto by San Antonio Reservoir; the towns of Foster Bar, Bullards Bar, and Garden Valley by Bullards
Bar Reservoir; the town of Salmon Falls by Folsom Lake; the towns of South Fork, Bloomer, Bidwell Bar,
Bidwell, and Enterprise by Lake Oroville; the town of Mussey Grove by San Vicente Reservoir; the town
of Isabella by Isabella Lake; the town of El Capitan by El Capitan Reservoir; the town of Cedar Springs
by Silverwood Lake; the town of Auld by Skinner Reservoir; the town of Hullville by Lake Pillsbury;
the towns of Lexington and Alma, for the James J. Lenihan Dam and Lexington Reservoir (around 1950), near Los Gatos;
the town of Petersburg, under the New Hogan Reservoir; town of Picacho, mostly submerged when Laguna Dam completed 1909.
Colorado: Sopris, for the Trinidad Dam and Reservoir; McPhee for the McPhee
Reservoir; the town of Iola by Blue Mesa Reservoir
Connecticut: the village of Barkhamsted Hollow, for Barkhamsted Reservoir
on the Farmington River (Saville Dam, 1940)
Florida: the town of Butler due to construction of the
Jim Woodruff Reservoir.
Georgia: the towns of Petersburg and Lisbon when Strom Thurmond Lake
was created; the town of Oketeyeconne by Walter F. George Reservoir; the town of Hunt by
Chatuge Lake.
Idaho: the town of American Falls, for the American Falls
Reservoir and Dam (1910s-1920s); the town of Montour, for the Black Canyon Dam.
Indiana: the town of Monument City, flooded in 1965 to create the
Salamonie Reservoir.
Kansas: towns under Tuttle Creek Lake on the Big Blue River, near
Manhattan (1962; one town was rebuilt elsewhere: Randolph, Kansas)
Maine: the towns of Dead River and Flagstaff, flooded in 1949
when the Flagstaff Dam was built and Flagstaff Lake was created on the Dead River in western Maine.
Maryland: the town of Conowingo when Conowingo Dam was built in
1928; 1809 mill town Triadelphia, inundated in 1931 by Triadelphia Reservoir; the town of
Shamburg by Prettyboy Reservoir; the towns of Dulaney Valley and Bosley by
Loch Raven Reservoir.
Massachusetts: the towns of Boylston, West Boylston, Clinton and Sterling, for
the Wachusett Reservoir (1897-1908);
town of Dana, North Dana, Millington, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, on the Swift River for
the Quabbin Reservoir
Missouri: the towns of Theodosia and Forsyth when the
Bull Shoals Dam and Lake was built on the White River in 1951; the town of Shawnee Bend, inundated
by the creation of the Lake of the Ozarks by Bagnell Dam in 1931.
Montana: the town of Nagos, inundated by Lake Koocanusa; towns and
homes near Glasgow, Mont., flooded by Fort
Peck Dam on the Missouri River (1933-1940), created to provide flood control, hydroelectric power, and
10,000 jobs during the Depression -- it is the largest hydraulically filled dam in the United States and
created the fifth largest man-made lake in the U.S., Fort Peck Lake; the town of
Armstead (inundated), plus Routes 91 (rebuilt as Interstate 15) and the main line of the Union Pacific RR, for Clark
Canyon Dam and Reservoir in Beaverhead County (1961-1964), created for downstream irrigation and flood
control; the town of Rexford, Highway 37, the Great Northern Railroad line, for Libby Dam and
Lake Koocanusa (1970s).
Nevada: St. Thomas, under Lake Mead when the art deco Boulder
Dam (aka Hoover Dam) was built on the Colorado River in 1931-1936, but due to drought conditions
has been visible again since the late 1990s.
New Mexico: town of Paraje, submerged by Elephant Butte Lake when Elephant Butte Dam built, 1912-1916
New York: Neversink
and Bittersweet, New York, now under the Neversink Reservoir; the towns of Olive,
West Shokan, Brodhead Bridge, Brown's Station, Boiceville, West Hurley, Glenford and
Ashton (in the Catskills) to create Ashokan
Reservoir; the towns of Beerston, Cannonsville,
Rock Rift, Rock Royal and Granton, for Cannonsville Reservoir; the towns of Arena, Pepacton,
Shavertown and Union Grove, for Pepacton Reservoir; the towns of Eureka, Montela and Lackawack, for Rondout
Reservoir (1937-1954); the town of Gilboa for Schoharie Reservoir in the Catskills (1919-1927); the
town of Southeast, on the Croton River (Sodom Dam), to create East Branch Reservoir, Middle Branch Reservoir,
Bog Brook Reservoir and Diverting Reservoir (info
and photos here); Concord, partially flooded in 1930 when the Conklingville dam
created the Sacandaga Reservoir (now Great Sacandaga Lake).
North Carolina: the towns of Judson
and Fontana, to create Fontana Lake; the town of Tuscola, inundated by the creation of Lake Junaluska and Lake Junaluska Dam.
North Dakota: Sanish (Old Sanish), Elbowoods, Lucky
Mound, Shell Creek, Nishu, Charging Eagle, Beaver Creek, Red Butte, Independence, and Van Hook (some
towns are part of Fort Berthold Indian Reservation), flooded for Lake Sakakawea in 1953 (see photo of
foundations visible above lake); town of Moe, under the Garrison Reservoir (1950s).
Ohio: the town of Elk Lick by William H. Harsha Lake
Oregon: the town
of Arlington, in
Gilliam County, relocated uphill from its original location to make way for the John Day Dam,
constructed on the Columbia River (1958-1968) and creating Lake Umatilla, along with the towns of Boardman and Umatilla, also relocated for the dam.
Pennsylvania: the town of Corydon, and tribal lands and gravesites, flooded in the 1965 for
Kinzua Dam and Allegheny Reservoir and in the 1990s partially uncovered due to low
water levels; the town of Pritchard by Lake Cowanesque; town (Wilsonville?) under Lake Wallenpaupack (1924-1926)
Rhode Island: the towns of Kent, Richmond, Ashland, South Scituate,
Saundersville, Rockland and Ponaganset, and mills at Clayville, Elmdale, Harrisdale and Glenrock,
plus almost 1,500 graves (relocated), for the Scituate
Reservoir (1915-1926).
South Carolina: the towns in the Saluda Valley,
under Lake Murray (Saluda Dam, 1920s); the towns of Andersonville and Price
by Hartwell Lake
South Dakota: Bear Gulch II, submerged beneath the waters of Pactola Lake
Tennessee: the town of Butler, in 1948 by the TVA for
Watauga Dam and Reservoir; towns under Norris Lake, created by
the TVA's Norris Dam (1933-1936), for hydroelectric and flood control structure,
on the Clinch River; the town of Willow Grove, for Dale Hollow Reservoir (1942)
Texas: Guerrero Viejo, a colonial town from the 1750s -- which includes Nuestra
Senora del Refugio, a historic Spanish mission -- when the U.S. and Mexico dammed the
Rio Grande to create Falcon Lake Reservoir in 1953; the town of Old Zapata, inundated by
the Falcon Dam Reservoir; the town of Calliham, for the Choke Canyon Dam and
Reservoir (1982) on the Frio River (flowing to the Nueces River); the town
of Addicks near Houston for the Addicks Dam Reservoir (mid 1940s); the panhandle town of
Saints Roost, under water in the Greenbelt Reservoir; town of Swartwout, inundated by Livingston Dam/Reservoir on the Trinity River;
houses, farmsteads, orchards, and
farms, submerged by Lake Travis with the Mansfield Dam (originally called the Marshall Ford Dam), on the Colorado River, built
in 1937-1941.
Utah: Connellsville, under Electric Lake; the old mining town of
Hite, under Lake Powell; the town of Rockport, under the Rockport Reservoir (1950s).
Virginia: the town of Greenwood, inundated by Lake Moomaw
Washington: 3,000 people (including Indian tribes) in the towns of
Kettle Falls, Peach, Keller, Lincoln, Inchelium, Gerome, Marcus, Gifford, Boyds, Fort Covile, and Daisy
evacuated for Lake Roosevelt, formed
by the Grand Coulee Dam (1933-1941) on
the Columbia River, which was built for the purpose of irrigation; the town of Moncton, submerged by Rattlesnake Lake and Masonry Dam on the
Cedar River Watershed (1912-1915) to provide drinking water for Seattle; the town of Roosevelt, relocated for the
building of the John Day Dam and creation of Lake Umatilla on the Columbia River (1958-1968).
West Virginia: the towns of Yates, Sandy, and Stone
House, inundated by Tygart Lake; the town of Morrison by Summersville Dam.
For more:
Immersed Remains: Towns Submerged in
America has more history, and photos, of some drowned towns in the U.S.
OUTSIDE UNITED STATES
Canada: the town of Minnewanka, Alberta, for
Lake Minnewanka (1912; 1941); the mining town of Minto, British Columbia, for
Carpenter Reservoir; towns of West Kootenay, British Columbia, including Arrowhead, Beaton, Needles and
Waneta, drowned for reservoirs and power dams; the town of Upper Mill Ville by Mactequac Lake, New Brunswick;
the towns of Mille Roches, Moulinette, Wales, Dickinson’s Landing, Farran’s Point, and Aultsville, near Cornwall,
Ontario, for a hydro dam on the St. Lawrence River in 1958.
United Kingdom: the mill village of Goyt in Derbyshire; the
towns of Derwent and Ashopton for Ladybower Dam; the village of Hambleton, inundated by Rutland
Water; the town of Mardale in the Lake District, flooded by Haweswater Reservoir.
Australia: Old Jyndabyne Township, New South Wales, for the
Jyndabyne Dam Project
New Zealand: Cromwell (South Island) partially flooded in
the 1980s to create Lake Dunstan, to power a hydroelectric dam
Italy: the town
of Fabbriche di Careggine, under Lake Vagli -- every ten years the lake is emptied for maintenance and
the town is visible.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, S.A.: Federación was
submerged (residents relocated) in 1979 when the Salto Grande Dam was
built, on the border with Uruguay.
Colombia, S.A.: the old colonial town of Guatavita was
flooded to create a hydro-electric reservoir, Tominé Reservoir (1967)
Brazil, S.A.: the original city of Nova Ponte plus 8 other municipalities,
due to the Nova Ponte Hydropower Plant dam and reservoir (1987-1994)
India: the town
of Harsud, in Madhya Pradesh, flooded in 2005 for the
Narmada Dam project, to provide hydroelectric power and irrigation for crops; the village
of Khandal, the
town of Tehri, and other villages, for the Tehri Dam (1990s)
Burma: tens of thousands of people forcibly relocated for the proposed
TA Sarong hydroelectric dam and its reservoir, on the Salween River in northeastern
Burma (2000).
Russia: the town of Atalanka and others along the the shores of
the Angara (in Siberia), intentionally flooded in 1961 as a result of the
construction downriver of several dams and the Bratsk hydroelectric station.
China: millions of people are expected to be transplanted from 153 towns
and 4,500 villages (and several temples submerged) when the Three Gorges Dam is completed.
Sources
Re: dam-l towns
submerged by lakes by Damon Scott
Underwater Towns -- Scuba Diving
Board (Cached here)
