A village and a bridge submerged and forgotten in a reservoir in Portugal

During the 20th century, important reservoir construction projects were carried out on the Iberian Peninsula.

The ghost town of Tristanes, the abandoned Isabel II reservoir and the Hoyazo crater
San Román de Sau, the submerged town that reappeared due to the drought in Catalonia

These projects were developed in both Spain and Portugal, especially during the era when both countries were under dictatorships. In central Portugal, construction began on the Castelo do Bode Dam in 1945, in the municipality of Tomar along the Zêzere River. This large dam has a height of 115 meters, a crest length of 402 meters, and a capacity of 430,000 cubic meters.

As has happened with many reservoirs, the expansion of the Castelo do Bode Dam in the 1980s submerged a village, whose inhabitants were relocated. In addition to the houses that were submerged when the dam opened in 1951, a bridge, the Vale da Ursa bridge, opened in 1885 over the Zêzere River and featuring granite pillars and a metal deck, with a height of 20 meters, was also submerged.

This Sunday, Bros Of Decay published a video showing their dive into that reservoir to explore that town and that bridge, which have practically been forgotten:

You can see some screenshots from this video here. Here we see one of the divers with a toy horse found in the sunken ruins.

A car found underwater by the divers. It appears to be a BMW E30, a 1982 model. It's surprising that this car was left abandoned there; it must have been almost new when the dam was widened.

One of the walls of the submerged village. The video has excellent recording quality.

A plaque placed on the submerged bridge. According to the text, it was placed in 2007 by Portuguese divers in memory of that bridge.