Doel 🇧🇪

Doel is an abandoned Belgian village. Today part of the district of Beveren, Doel was in 1977 an autonomous municipality of 25.61 km², a population of about 1300 inhabitants. For some time now, the area has been chosen as a location for one of the two nuclear power plants of the country. The expropriation of the inhabitants of this village was decided in 1999 by the Flemish Region Authority. Some last inhabitants still struggle for the survival of their village, which has been delaying the whole process for quite some time now.

After travelling several kilometers in an exclusively industrial landscape, we arrive at the village of Doel. Deserted streets, abandoned houses, broken windows, graphs on the walls… the decor seems unreal, both poetic and disturbing. Everyday, visitors come (sometimes from far away) to walk around and take pictures. Among all this abandoned space, the latest inhabitants gather in the village cafe, still in use and at the foot of a typical Polder mill, as well as in the village church, still intact. While waiting for its destruction, the place has become an attraction for tourists, taggers, photographers but also vandals and drug addicts …

Nevertheless, the pictures of this village remind us that Doel once was a village full of life, with its inhabitants, its school, its business and its small square …