Abandoned places always have certain risks, but there are some that are especially dangerous, at least for certain activities.<\/p>\n
The Nantlle Valley in North Wales was a major slate-producing area<\/strong>, with as many as 37 quarries excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries. The largest of these was Dorothea Quarry<\/strong> near Talysarn in Carnarvonshire (Gwynedd in Welsh). This quarry was opened in the 1820s<\/strong>, eventually employing 350 men and producing 5,000\u20136,000 tonnes of slate per year, with a peak output of over 17,000 tonnes in 1872.<\/p>\n Dorothea's production declined in the second half of the 20th century. Finally, the quarry was abandoned in 1970, and a large part of it was flooded, creating three lakes<\/strong>. The rest became majestic slate ruins that resemble an ancient castle from ancient times. At the bottom of the quarry, underwater, old quarry buildings and some machinery<\/strong> that had been used there remained. In addition, cars were piled up in the western area in the following decades.<\/p>\n As a result, Dorothea became a magnet for scuba divers, with fatal consequences:<\/strong> between 1994 and 2004, 21 divers died there<\/a> from various causes. One of them is that the quarry is almost 100 meters deep<\/strong> and some divers were not prepared to dive so deep. Added to this are the numerous traps posed by the accumulation of abandoned remains at the bottom. For a few years now, Dorothea has been reserved for experienced, well-equipped divers<\/a> to prevent further deaths. Two years ago, Mike Smith SCUBA & Technical Diving UK<\/a> published a video of a dive at Dorothea using special equipment<\/strong> and up to a depth limit of 60 meters:<\/p>\n
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