something under the water

Greg van Eekhout points to a most excellent LA Times story about a 45-foot deep lake in Russia suddenly disappearing. The story is filled with good stuff, but I like the foreshadowing in retrospect at the end:

The channel-to-the-river theory has gained credence as fishermen along the Oka reported catching 35-pound carp. The species has been found in the lake but not the river. At least, not in ordinary times. But, of course, these are not ordinary times; not when White Lake is there one day and gone the next.

Residents of the few dozen cottages here say there have always been odd stories about White Lake. Bats lived in caves there, and then one day years ago the bats, and the caves, were simply gone. Over the years, said Valentina Smyotova, 74, laundry would disappear. 'Women would go there to wash clothes, and sometimes a shirt would swim away from a woman, and then it would be recovered in the river.'

Likewise, a church was said to have stood on White Lake's edge early in the 20th century, and it crumbled into the lake.

It ate a church--what did you think was going to happen?

I also love this quote higher up:

Dobryakov rushed back to the village and grabbed a friend. "I told him, 'The lake's collapsed, the water's gone.' My friend said, 'You're lying,' I said, 'Of course I'm a liar, but not this time.'"

But not this time...