Inside creepy abandoned theme park dubbed the ‘cemetery of attractions’ – and terrifying reason it’s been left to rot
A SPOOKY theme park once considered one of the best and biggest attractions in Venezuela has been left to rot.
Abandoned, looted and torn apart - Diversions Grano de Oro has become known as a ghostly "cemetery of attractions".
Built in 2001, the theme park quickly became one of the western state of Zulia's main attractions.
It was filled with water parks, playgrounds and mega rollercoasters.
Only a short drive from Venezuela's second largest city of Maracaibo, a city once booming with oil, it boasted thousands of visitors every week.
Travelling circuses and famous musicians would put on wild shows that drew in huge crowds.
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But the magic soon disappeared.
In mid-2014, global oil prices collapsed and Venezuela's economy went into free fall.
Inflation skyrocketed, unrest and crime exploded and dire humanitarian conditions forced over 7.5million people to flee the country since 2015.
Life inside Maracaibo got so bleak that thieves were reportedly breaking into coffins and stealing items from corpses.
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With huge swaths of the city starving and poverty-stricken and the state suffering constant blackouts, there was little time or money for rides and fun.
The park was officially closed in 2018, although it had already become a shell of its former glory well before then.
Now, Diversions Grano de Oro lies in shattered ruins - dubbed by Venezuelan outlet as "the cemetery of attractions".
Left to the elements and looters, it has turned into a desolate wasteland in just a few years.
It's hard to imagine that children once had fun inside what remains of its walls.
The rusty frame of a giant rollercoaster haunts the landscape.
Elsewhere, a forest-themed playground sits in tatters, pieces of climbing frames sprawled all over the ground among mud and dirt.
A solemn face carved into a giant fake tree speaks to the sadness of it all.
The abandoned theme park was also built on top of an area with a dark history.
It sits on the ruins of Aeropuerto Grano de Oro - once the site of an infamous air disaster, where 155 died when a plane crashed while taking off in 1969.
Elsewhere, a Chinese amusement park has been given the unwanted title of "world's worst theme park" after tourists were left baffled thinking it was abandoned.
Sat in China's capital of Beijing, the Shijingshan Amusement Park has been dubbed a knock-off Disneyland by tourists for decades.
First opened on September 28, 1986, the not-so-magical park costs just 10 Yuan (£1.11) to enter and has been blasted for damaged, pound-shop versions of Disney's attractions and characters.
Another knock-off Disney World is Japan's Nara Dreamland.
It was supposed to be the country's most popular adventure attraction but ended up as an eerie abandoned site filled with dust and rot.
And in Singapore, an enormous disturbing theme park is all about hell.
Haw Par Villa - where children as young as six flock on school trips - teaches visitors about sin and the many gory ways they can be punished after death.
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Almost 4,000 square metres play home to a variety of disturbing exhibits which include dismembered human bodies, tears of blood, demons who feast on flesh and people on pitchforks.
