The water was diverted from the Amu Dar'ya and Syr Dar'ya rivers which feed the Aral Sea. Salinization became widespread leading to acute soil degradation, and the Aral, once the fourth largest lake in the world, began to shrink rapidly, leaving fishing boats and their communities high and dry, sometimes tens of kilometres from the old shoreline. As well as losing their livelihoods when the fishery collapsed in the early 1980s, many of these communities now face appalling health conditions. In Karakalpakstan, a semi-independent republic of Uzbekistan, women are victims of a pandemic of anaemia that has hit the small republic in the past decade. Five times the percentage of women affected a decade ago, it is probably the highest rate in the world, reports the British-based magazine New Scientist .
Local doctors say the polluted water is to blame.
The drinking-water available to most people is polluted drainage water laden with salts and concentrated chemicals from the cotton fields. Nor is anaemia the only health problem. The people of Karakalpakstan also suffer from rising rates of thyroid and kidney disease. Over the period 1981 to 1987, it is estimated that liver cancers soared an incredible 200 percent, throat cancers were up 25 percent and infant mortality climbed 20 percent.