Aral Sea: legacy of gross ecological negligence

RT -

Once the world's fourth-largest lake, the Aral Sea in Central Asia is now a shadow of its former self. Apart from being an ecological catastrophe, the lake’s demise poses a serious threat to people's health.

Those in the Kazakh city of Aralsk once had the sea at their doorstep, but are now confronted by the haunting sight of abandoned ships. The water is 20 kilometers away and, from the dried-up remains, sickness comes.

One local woman, who chose not to be named, says she remembers the times when her loved ones started to fall ill.

”New diseases emerged that we had never seen, in high numbers, especially related to breathing. My husband has got chronic bronchitis,” she said. “You cannot see salt in the air, but you feel it on the skin and you can feel it on the tongue.”

Fields planted to make the Soviet Union completely self-sufficient in cotton consumed the rivers feeding the Aral Sea.

Decade by decade, the sea all but disappeared. Now, this once-huge lake is reduced to a pit of sand, salt and pollution.

The salt clings to the moist sea bed at the harbor in Aralsk. As soon as it is dry enough, even the slightest wind carries it into the town and across the country.

In this way, salt gets straight into the lungs of men, women and children who do not even know they are breathing it.

Before the grand cotton scheme, the Aral Sea was one of the most picturesque places in Central Asia. As it disappeared along with the Soviet Union, the task of regeneration fell on the newly-independent Central Asian states in the early 1990s.

It was then that people learnt the extent of the sea’s demise, which until that point was known only to those close to the cultivation projects. Pesticides used to yield cotton leeched into the rivers, making the water a silent killer.

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