In Search of Atlantis: Sunken Cities From Around the World

On June 8, the world celebrates Ocean Day, officially declared by the United Nations in 2009 to honor the significance and wealth of the ocean, which cover 70% of the planet, and to raise public awareness of the role of the ocean and the threats it faces.

Speaking of the importance of the ocean, suffice it to note that it produces at least half of the planet's oxygen, and is home to most of Earth's biodiversity. According to the UN, the ocean is a major source of protein for more than a billion people around the world.

Yet sometimes water is merciless and, in combination with natural disasters or the actions of mankind, can wash away entire buildings and even cities.

The most stirring case of this kind is Atlantis, a mythical island-state swallowed up by the sea in a single day as a result of an earthquake.

However, there are real places around the globe that have experienced the power of the ocean.

Take a look at photos of cities buried at sea around the world in Sputnik's gallery:

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In this photograph taken on August 18, 2021 a dive guide shows tourists a copy of the original statue preserved at the Museum of Baiae, representing Dionysus with ivy crown in the Nymphaeum of punta Epitaffio, the submerged ancient Roman city of Baiae at the Baiae Underwater Park, part of the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park complex site in Pozzuoli near Naples. Statues which once decorated luxury abodes in this beachside resort are now playgrounds for crabs off the coast of Italy, where divers can explore ruins of palaces and domed bathhouses built for emperors.

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Tourists walk along the main street of the abandoned Villa Epecuen, Argentina, Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. The Argentine spa town was a mecca of tourism for much of the 20th century, until the adjoining lake poured through a broken embankment in 1985 and destroyed hotels, restaurants and other buildings.

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A large statue of the god Hapi, foreground, and other two unidentified statues lay on the deck of a boat in Alexandria, Egypt Thursday, June 7, 2001, after a French underwater archaeological team raised them to the surface along with other precious items that had laid hidden in the murky depths. Researchers said Thursday, they have only just begun to probe the extraordinary treasures of the sunken city of Herakleion. More than 1,000 years ago, an earthquake sent the Pharaonic city of Heracleion to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

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"The Cross" is formed by two perpendicular cracks in the wall of a ravine that crosses Yonaguni Monument nearby the "Turtle Monument" feature.

CC0 / Melkov / Yonaguni Monument Cross with Diver

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Pavlopetri in Laconia, Gteece

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Excavation "Upper City" on the territory of the museum-reserve "Fanagoria" in the Krasnodar Territory.

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A mural by Robert Nicholson of the National Geographic shows the artist's reconstruction of the 1692 earthquake in Port Royal, Jamaica, in an exhibit at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida in Miami, Friday, March 2, 2007. Jamaica's Port Royal was a bustling town of the New World until an earthquake and tsunami destroyed most it in minutes over three centuries ago.

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Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel. The site is dated to the final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site of Atlit Yam dates between 6900 and 6300 BC. Moshe Stekelis Museum of Prehistory exhibition in Haifa Israel The exhibition is based on the excavations and researches of the Haifa University and Antiquities Authority.

CC BY-SA 3.0 / Hanay / Atlit-Yam, Ritual structure made of stones

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An island on the Rybinsk reservoir in the Yaroslavl region, where the city of Mologa was located, flooded during the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir.

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French archaeologist Franck Goddio (R) and Egyptian curator Snaa Fouad Zaki (L) from Cairo's Museum, show the statue of Cesarion, upon its arrival aboard a Beluga plane from Cairo, at Roissy airport, near Paris, 16 November 2006. The black granite statue, shown in Paris museum, le Grand Palais in the exhibition "Tresors engloutis d'Egypte" (Egyptian immersed treasures), from 09 December 2006 to 14 March 2007, was found at the port of Alexandria by Goddio. Ptolemee XV, better known as Cesarion, is the illegal son of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (from -51 to -30 before J.C) and was killed by Roman Emperor Octavius.