Aral Sea

The Aral Sea ( (Aral tengizi), , ) was a lake in Central Asia. It is between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south.

Since the 1960s, the Aral Sea shrank. 90% of the sea has gone. The rivers that fed it (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya) were used by the Soviet Union for irrigating cotton production. What is left of the Aral Sea is heavily polluted, largely as the result of weapons testing, industrial projects, and fertilizer runoff before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union.Qobil, Rustam 2015. Waiting for the sea. BBC News

There is a project to save at least the northern part of the Aral Sea. For this, a dam was built in the 1990 to stop water running off. Climate improved in the following years, and water levels rose again. However, that dam broke, and was rebuilt in 2005, with international funding.

Another problem was that Rebirth Island had been used for the testing of biological weapons until 1993. It is currently contaminated with anthrax, the plague, and tularemia. Since 2001, it is no longer an island, but a part of the mainland.

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