Swallowed by sand: Stunning images reveal haunting beauty of abandoned wooden houses in Namibian desert ghost town.
These hauntingly beautiful images reveal what’s left of family homes that are filled with sand in a once prosperous mining town deep in an African desert. Abandoned for more than half a century, the ghost town of Kolmanskop, in the Namib Desert in southern Namibia, would serve as the perfect backdrop for a horror film or apocalyptic thriller.
The German-style village flourished after diamonds were discovered in 1908 but its decaying homes were left to rot after the mining field was exhausted. It was completely abandoned in 1954 and is now said to be haunted. Sand has infiltrated the windowless and, in some cases, roofless homes, leaving small dunes inside bedrooms, corridors and kitchens where families used to reside in the mining town’s heyday.
Kolmanskop was once home to a hospital, school, ballroom, theatre, casino and the first tram in Africa, offering the finer things in life to the German miners and their families. But it is now a popular destination for curious tourists and explorers, including photographer Enrique Lopez-Tapia, who snapped photos of the surviving wooden houses.
