Tag: Ilisu hydroelectric dam project

This 12,000-year-old Turkish town to be submerged in a couple of months

Turkey’s Hasankeyf and its surrounding limestone cliffs are home to thousands of human-made caves, 300 medieval monuments and a unique canyon ecosystem. But, the 12,000-year-old town is doomed to disappear in the coming months. An artificial lake, part of the Ilisu hydroelectric dam project, will swallow it up. The dam has been built further downstream the Tigris. Ilisu is a central element of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), a land development plan to boost the economy of the long-neglected region, through hydroelectric energy and irrigation. The dam will be Turkey’s second largest. It has been built further downstream of the Tigris ... Read more