Inside eerie abandoned resort dubbed 'Chernobyl' on popular holiday island

An urban explorer has shared images of the eerie ruins of a once bustling tourist resort that has now been dubbed “Chernobyl”.

Ten Bel in Tenerife once saw millions of holidaymakers come to enjoy the sea and sand but it all changed when the owner died in 2002.

Its name is a combination of Tenerife and Belgium where the resort’s founder Michel Albert Huygens came from and was built in the 1960s.

It had more than 2,000 apartments in the Alborada, Bella Vista, Drago, Eureka, Frontera, Géminis, Maravillas and Primavera complexes.

It was an all inclusive resort that had the regions first shopping centre which included a bank, chemist and a post office among other stores in a massive 80,000 square metres.

The resort now has dilapidated buildings (Tenerife Weekly)

But it is a very different looking place now as it failed to adapt to changes in tourism at the start of the century.

And its dilapidated and abandoned feel has led it to be called “Chernobyl”.

Tiktoker @‌special_six took followers on a tour of the site in a recent clip saying: "It looks like we are in Chernobyl, but we are not. We are in the abandoned city of Ten Bel, on the capital island of Tenerife.

"It became the jewel in the crown of tourism in the Canaries. Everything was going well, Ten Bel received millions of tourists, the praise of all Canarians, but everything changed in 2002 when the owner died."

The resort prospered as Tenerife benefitted from the arrival of foreign tourism in the 1960s (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Images show walls covered in graffiti, areas have become overgrown by vegetation while walls and walkways are crumbling.

The resort was opened in 1963 during a boom in Spanish tourism from the UK and other northern European countries.

For the first time people began to head on holidays to hotspots like the Canary Islands, Mallorca or Benidorm.

An apartment block at the Alborada complex (Canarian Weekly)

But when the complex was sold, the apartments were sold off and the upkeep of communal areas was put in the hands of the new owners.

And the area continued to go downhill with squatters moving into some of the homes and basic services including water were cut off as it fell into disrepair.

There is some hope though for the location with local reports that £13 million is being pumped in to revamp the Alborada complex.

A US fund with offices in New York and Miami is believed to have bought 282 of the apartments at the complex with the remaining 196 apartments still owned privately.