Beneath the colorful ice of this lake in Romania lies an entire village, with hundreds of houses and graves, that was buried in toxic mud.
The story of the village of Geamăna is one of the saddest in our recent history. In 1978, the communist regime opened a huge copper mine nearby and needed a place to dump the waste from the operation. They chose this inhabited valley, and the people were forced to leave, leaving behind their life’s work to make way for the industrial waste.
It was not a quick flood, but a slow and agonizing disappearance that lasted for years. The water level, full of heavy metals and cyanide, gradually rose. First it covered the gardens, then the wells, the houses, the school and the cemetery. The residents moved higher and higher into the hills, but the toxic lake caught up with them there too, swallowing everything.
Today, all that remains visible on the surface is the church steeple. It was built on the highest point of the settlement, which is why it has survived the longest. Beneath it, dozens of meters deep in the mud, lies the rest of the village. The lake level continues to rise by almost a meter every year, so soon even this steeple will no longer be visible.
In winter, the landscape looks unreal because of the strong colors. The frozen water has reddish or turquoise hues, not due to natural causes, but due to dangerous chemicals leaked from the mine. Although many people come here to take spectacular photos, the reality is harsh: we are looking at a massive ecological disaster that has permanently wiped a community of people off the map.
Beneath the colorful ice of this lake in Romania lies an entire village
