An incredible city lost to time can be found hidden at the bottom of a lake. The town of Guape was flooded in 1963 by the nearby Furnas Hydroelectric Plant in the Minas Gerais state of Brazil.

When the water drops by more than 10 meters the old church and the ruins of the town can be seen, with buildings, vans, bus, kitchens, woodburning stoves and an entire bridge surviving underwater.

Diving instructor Roberto Obvioslo, who has spent a decade exploring the site, told G1: “We found an entire street. From there, we started mapping everything. We marked the points, but without exploring immediately.”

He said that the flooding always made him curious to know what happened, saying about his underwater discoveries.

He said: “Some houses are still intact. Only part of the roof came down, but everything else is clearly identifiable. We had been looking for this bridge for a long time and couldn’t find it. When we went looking for the car, we found it intact, just as it was.”

The town is 80 metres down, where there is little sunlight and visibility, forcing divers to rely on powerful torches. The team only document with photographs, leaving everything where they find it.

When the town flooded in 1963, locals had to flee their homes. Retired resident Abrão Alves Andrade, 86, said the chaos is still fresh in his memory

He said: “My father told me: ‘Saddle the horse and go to Barra Velha to tell the people that the water is there.’ But people didn’t believe me, they said I was a fool and didn’t know anything.”

Father José Ronaldo Rocha, who was only 12, said: “As the water rose, people were evacuated from their homes. They stayed at the school complex, which was higher up.”

He said that tractors with steel cables came and pulled down some of the houses, calling it a “rather desperate situation”, with lots of crops lost.

Resident José Dalton Barbosa, 77, said: ”When that conversation started, saying they were going to close it down, cover everything up, we thought it was like Noah’s flood.”