The lost Sea
The Lost Sea
The lost Aral Sea or also known as Sea of Islands was identified by the experts as one of the most tragic environmental disaster that happened in history, where an estimated area of 68,000 kilometers of sea have just completely dried up, and turned into a deserted land. Aral Sea is considered as one of the largest lakes in the whole world before it vanished and fishing is one of the locals’ main sources of income that is why when the sea dried up it greatly impacted the region’s economy status.
The catastrophic drying incident of Aral Sea started from 1964 up to 1960. It is located between Kazakhstan and Karakalpakstan. Some say that the irrigation that was made for a certain region for growing cotton has something to do with the incident since it took one third of the water’s source of Aral Sea and after building a five hundred kilometers long canal, that is the time where the parts of the sea started to dry up. However, some people believe that it is an effect of tremendous global warming.
Aside from the economic difficulties that it brought, residents experienced extreme climate changes making the winter colder and the summer so much hotter. This kind of climate became health hazard to the locals where both adults and children suffered from different kinds of illness such as bronchitis, arthritis, anemia, and a lot more respiratory related illness. Lots of reputable medical professional say that it is caused by the utilization of the stagnant water and the fishes left on the small part of the sea, since it already have lots of chemicals in it.
According to the soviets, this incident is inevitable because of its location and they also call it nature’s error. This statement gained lots of negative feedbacks, especially from the residents who benefit from Aral Sea. They said that it is because of the soviet’s lack of expertise in building irrigations that caused the incident. Residents suggest that it is better for the soviets to admit that they made a mistake that resulted to a calamitous effect that destroyed their living.
On the other hand, experts are now conducting studies in the deserted land where Aral Sea is previously located in an attempt to recover it. They consider rebuilding the irrigation canals for more efficient water transport, installation of dams around it for water supply, plant desalination plants, and a lot more. All of these may or may not bring back the Aral Sea. As of today, there is only five percent left on the whole Aral sea and residents are still hoping for its full recovery.
The evaporation of the great Aral Sea happened in just six years, which is definitely fast according to the experts if you consider its depth and size and the worst thing about it is there are lots of people who are not aware of what happened and because of the disappearance of Aral Sea, some of them might not know anything about it at all.
