LAKE POYANG, the Chinese Triangle of Bermuda
From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, more than 200 ships sank in the mysterious waters of Lake Poyang, known as the Chinese Bermuda Triangle. The incidents led to the disappearance of numerous ships and more than 1,600 people, with more than 30 crazed survivors.
Poyang Lake is the largest freshwater lake in China and is located in Jiangxi Province in southeast China. The actual size of the lake fluctuates greatly. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, by summer at the latest, “that’s 1,385 square miles (3,585 square km), but a precise measurement is impossible because the difference between the flood level and the shallow water level is sometimes up to 25 feet (8 meters). ). ).»
According to the department in charge of maritime affairs, large ships with payloads of up to 2,000 tons sank in Poyang Lake. On August 3, 1985, 13 ships were lost in a single day, an extremely rare event in maritime history. Scientists have tried for years to unravel the mysteries of Poyang Lake, but no investigation has yielded any concrete conclusions.
No wreck was found on the bottom of the lake.
The Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology (the study of inland waters) has been engaged in the exploration and study of Poyang Lake in recent years. Jiahu Jiang, a researcher at the institute, said it is unimaginable that shipwrecks or victims were never found underwater during the many expeditions they conducted, although countless ships are known to have disappeared.
Consequently, the disconcerting conclusion drawn from the evidence is that every time a ship disappears, everyone on board vaporizes with the ship and nothing is left behind.
The Japanese invaders also attacked
According to Jiang, the Japanese army that invaded China during World War II also suffered an accident in the lake. On April 16, 1945, a Japanese merchant ship weighing over 2,000 tons sank in Poyang Lake. Operated by the Japanese military, the ship was fully laden with treasures and antiquities taken from Chinese civilians. The ship sank in the lake and none of the crew escaped the tragedy. Upon receiving news of the ship’s disappearance, the Japanese Army ordered its naval personnel stationed nearby to rescue the ship. Only one of the divers managed to find his way back to shore, but he was unable to speak.
The survivor seemed to have been struck by extreme terror. He went crazy for unknown reasons. At the end of World War II, the Chinese Nationalist government once again tried to save the ship. This time they sought the help of Edward Boer, a renowned American diver and rescue expert. In the summer of 1946, Boer led a team of divers and began their salvage effort in the waters, but nothing was found after a continuous search that lasted for months. During the search, several divers mysteriously disappeared.
Latitude 30 degrees north
“If someone had survived an accident in those waters, it would have been much easier to identify the cause; however, it simply isn’t,” Jiang said. Since no one has been able to rationally explain the mysteries after so many decades, Lakeland has been dubbed the “Ghost Area.” Local residents have spread gossip about lake monsters, UFOs, and aliens. What causes the most intrigue surrounding the area is the geographical location of Poyang Lake. It lies about 30 degrees north. Therefore, many people link the mystery of these waters to other unsolved mysteries centered around a latitude of 30 degrees north, such as the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean and the pyramids in Egypt.
One attempt at a scientific explanation attributes sinking accidents to the influence of large aquatic creatures. For example, freshwater dolphins in the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake may have capsized some ships, but this explanation is invalid, as dolphins are not powerful enough to sink ships weighing tens or even thousands of tons. .
