"Bottomless Lake" or "Groapa Burlacu".

In an edge of the Magura Park in the town of Targu Ocna, Bacau county, Romania, there is a stagnant water known as the “Bottomless Lake” or “Groapa Burlacu”.
Curious tourists stop, look and move on.
Today, the area represents only “a strangeness of nature, which has a story behind it”.
People still remember the ordeal the locals went through when they woke up with their houses covered in brine and smelling of oil. More than 10 families were displaced by the authorities at the time, and six houses were swallowed by the ground.
A tragedy that the communist regime at that time kept quiet.
The tragedy happened at 7:30 a.m. on a June morning in 1984.
The nightmare continued and two years later, on another summer day, before sunrise four more houses were swallowed by the earth.
The authorities at that time decided to move the locals to the block and not talk too much about the catastrophe.
Specialists claim that they have never been able to accurately measure the depth of the lake. The reason would be that the bottom of the water has connections with caverns started from abandoned wells for the extraction of salt in the Slănic area.
“Groapa Burlacu” was formed as a result of an experiment carried out after 1970 when it was wanted to exploit the salt from Târgu Ocna through a modern technology, with the help of probes.
The Ministry of Mines at that time wanted to exploit using the same method as Ocnele Mari, but it did not work.
In the end, it was a failed experiment and this lake appeared at a distance of a few meters, it was also an old exploitation of salt, which also contributed to the erosion of the earth.
Currently, the lake has an area of almost 1.1 hectares and a depth that varies between half a meter and 42.5 meters.
The water of the lake has been characterized as “a mineral, chlorinated, sodium and hypertonic water”, which can be used in the form of baths to treat several diseases: chronic degenerative rheumatic diseases, chronic abarticular rheumatic diseases, chronic post-traumatic diseases of the locomotor system and chronic peripheral neurological conditions.

Photo: Solomon Florin

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