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The exodus caused by the Salime reservoir

Negueira de Muñiz, Fonsagrada, Lugo

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The exodus caused by the Salime reservoir

Historical milestone · Negueira de Muñiz, Fonsagrada, Lugo

Image of Negueira de Muñiz, not of the place itself.

The construction of the Salime reservoir, on the river Navia, took up land and roads of Negueira de Muñiz and caused a massive emigration: from the 1,534 inhabitants it had in 1930, the concello dropped to just over two hundred, the least populated in Galicia. The project, the work of engineer Enrique Becerril with the collaboration of architect Joaquín Vaquero Palacios, was conceived in the mid-1940s and the works lasted from 1946 to 1953: the riverbed had to be diverted, a tunnel of more than 30,000 cubic metres excavated, and four settlements built to house more than 3,500 workers who came from other regions of Spain, mostly Andalusia. With a height of 132 metres above its foundations, it was in its day the largest reservoir in Spain and the second largest in Europe.

década de 1960

Photo: Praza Pública (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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