BBC - Vanishing lake baffles Russians

Vanishing lake baffles Russians


There have long been rumours about the lake
Residents of a village in central Russia are trying to solve the mystery of a lake that disappeared overnight.
Russia's NTV channel showed a huge, muddy basin where the lake once was, in the village of Bolotnikovo.

"It looks like somebody has pulled the plug out of a gigantic bath," said the TV's correspondent, next to a deep debris-filled hole.

Local officials in Nizhny Novgorod region say the lake was probably sucked into an underground cave.

The name of the village - which lies about 250 km (155 miles) east of Moscow - roughly translates as "boggy".

The discovery was made by local fishermen when they arrived at the lake early in the morning.

"I looked and there was no water. I thought: Oh my God, what's going on?" one of them told the TV.
Rescuers were called out to search the uncovered lake bed to see if anybody could have been sucked under, but it is thought no-one was on the lake when the waters vanished...cont'd

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4566355.stm

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

"We used to go swimming there, but we were rather afraid of its depth, and there were various rumours. For instance people said there used to be a church there underwater," one girl told the TV.

But one elderly villager sitting outside her house had another kind of force in mind.

"I thought the Americans had got here," she said, laughing.

That's what other countries think of us, pretty powerful

So, the people in Russia makes jokes about us being thieves who will steal anything that we can, like spiriting away an entire lake? We've given them plenty of reasons to think that way.

go to BBC.com and go to their "What I Have to Say" board. Then read the posts about the French/EU constitution debate.