Lake Lanier Margaritaville tragedy as man dies after locals say area is cursed with more than 200 deaths in 30 years

A MAN has drowned in a Georgia lake over Memorial Day weekend, with locals saying the area of water is cursed after it claimed the lives of 200 people in 30 years.

The 20-year-old man died in Lake Lanier, north east of Atlanta, at the swimming area of a Margaritaville resort.

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A man drowned at Lake Lanier this Memorial Day weekend.Credit: Getty Images

The man hasn’t been released but the family has been informed about this tragic incident, WSB-TV Atlanta reported.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said that the young man’s body was found on Sunday by game wardens.

The body was pulled out of the water by Hall County Fire.

Margaritaville at Lake Lanier has been considered a popular recreational area, known for its boating and water sports activities.

Police officers haven’t released information on the circumstances around the man’s death. Lanier Island could not be reached at the time of publication.

The death is the latest in a long line of Lake Lanier tragedies that has left some locals believing the area is cursed.

Since 1994, more than 200 people have died from swimming and boating accidents in the lake, CNN reported.

Its controversial past has made some people, especially on social media, think that the area is haunted.

The lake was created during the 1950s by flooding valley communities that held gravesites, which adds to the belief of the area being haunted.

The US Army Corps of Engineers decided to flood the area because they wanted to create a lake to provide Atlanta and other counties with water and power.

To prepare for the flooding, Army Corps of Engineers demolished or moved anything they considered dangerous, but it’s possible some items were left behind.

While the marked graves were said to be relocated, it’s likely that unmarked ones were flooded according to Cesar Yabor, a spokesman for the US Army Corps of Engineers, told CNN.

It has led to ghost stories around the infamous lake.

One story is about a woman, wearing a flowing blue dress, roaming the area.

The ghost lady and other angry spirits grab swimmers and drag them down to watery graves, the myths say.

Prior to the flooding, the valley communities were rich areas, filled with fertile land and wildlife.

Some residents have claimed to hear church bells, from a sunken church, but Yabor says that’s impossible.

“No such structure was known to be left behind due to the height issue — if it had a steeple — as well as the floating wood issue,” Yabor told CNN.

However, due to water levels shrinking, some of the leftover structures are resurfacing in the lake.

Lisa Russell, a historian, said that people deliberately deciding to flood communities is way scarier than any spooky folklore.

“Once a land of wild rivers, North Georgia is now broken with dams and human-made bodies of water that changed the ecosystem.

Once a land that belong to indigenous people, it is now buried under the water, making recovering of lost culture impossible,” Russell told CNN.

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