Story By: Jonathan Macias, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/M.P. San Pedro Fray Manuel de Torres
The wreck of a ship that sank 85 years ago which has been almost completely “swallowed” by an island has been snapped a drone for possibly the last time ever.
The mystery was unveiled by a team of experts from the Palaeontological Museum of the city of San Pedro in the province of Buenos Aires in Argentina.
The team reportedly managed to capture images of the ship “Elgar”, which mysteriously disappeared on 25th November 1934.
The wreck was spotted by a drone thanks to an ebb in the Parana river. This week the river reportedly reached a height of 1.24 metres, the fourth most pronounced ebb of the last 30 years.
According to local media, the boat became stranded on a silt bank in front of the town of San Pedro in what is now known as the Middle Island, a portion of triangular land located in the middle of the river, which was still forming at that time.
The “island of the ship that sank” happened to become an urban myth and a reference for fishermen and navigators.
Some sailors who frequented the river at that time reportedly reuses some objects from the abandoned shipwreck: especially various metals, iron and even some remember having been fishing, at a young age, on the deck of the abandoned ship.
Reports said researchers Jose Luis Aguilar, Javier and Lucas Saucedo, David Tettamanti, Fernando Chiodini and Cristian Aguirre were able to disembark on the island thanks to the ebb in the Panama river and there, with a drone they slowly flew over the area with the aim of obtaining images of the Elgar.
Jose Luis Aguilar, founder and Director of the Museum said to local reporters: “The great ebb experienced by the Parana (river) allowed us to capture what, possibly, are the last images of “Elgar” since, literally, it has been swallowed by the island.”
Aguilar also commented: “The only thing that emerges in the mud of the lagoon where the ship is located now is the mechanism to lift the anchor,”
A spokesman from the San Pedro Conservationist Group told local media reporters: “the place where the Elgar wreck lies is a shallow swamp that formed when the original island joined the silt bank where the ship ran aground. “
They added: “The two fractions of land merged to form an island twice the size it originally had. This forgotten steel ship is found inside (this island) the middle of the Parana (river). Fortunately, the last images of the shipwreck were registered before the island finishes swallowing it forever.”
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