About 20 KM north of the astonishing Iguazu Falls, there’s another
natural wonder even more stunning than the Iguazu falls. This is so called
Guaira Falls or Seven Falls or Sete Quedas in Portuguese along the border
between Brazil and Paraguay. This was a beautiful series of 18 massive
waterfalls on the Paraná River situated at a point where the river was forced
through a narrow gorge. Moreover at the head of falls, the river becomes
narrowed abruptly from a width of about 380 meters to 60 meters, creating one
of the most potent waterfalls on earth with a flow rate double that of the
Niagara Falls.
The whipping water formed a deafening noise that could be heard from
30 kilometer away. For several years, it was a popular tourist attraction and a
favorite place among the locals, until 1982 when the Brazilian military blew
away the rocks over which the water fell to create a lake for the newly
constructed Itaipu Dam. The Itaipu Dam is the biggest operating hydroelectric
plant in terms of annual energy generation, generating approximately 100 TWh of
power each year that accounts for 75% of the electricity consumed by Paraguay
and 17% of that consumed by Brazil. To construct such a gigantic dam some
sacrifices had to be made, and one of them was to flood the Guaíra Falls. Amazingly
a months before the great flood, thousands of sightseers flocked to the area to
see the falls for the last time.
When a group of excited visitors walked over a miserable maintained
suspended footbridge, it collapsed immensely under the weight resulting in the
death toll of more than 80 people. Therefore as the waters starts to rise,
hundreds of people congregated to participate in a guarup, an indigenous ritual
in memory of the falls. The inundation took only 14 days, happening during the
rainy season when the level of the Paraná River was high. Then on October 27,
1982, the reservoir was fully shaped and the falls had vanished. The Brazilian
government later dynamited the submerged rock face of the falls, to encourage
safer navigation on the river. The director of the company that built the dam,
later issued a statement saying, "We're not destroying Seven Falls. We're
just going to transfer it to Itaipu Dam, whose spillway will be a substitute
for [the falls'] beauty" however apparently it is impossible to take
pictures of the Guairá Falls these days, I’ve collected below pictures from
different websites.
