Aral Sea Catastrophe

[AZOOZ8802]

سبحانه وتعالى خلق الأرض بنظام متوازن، ومن الآيات العظيمة قوله تعالى: (وَهُوَ الَّذِي مَرَجَ الْبَحْرَيْنِ هَذَا عَذْبٌ فُرَاتٌ وَهَذَا مِلْحٌ أُجَاجٌ وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَهُمَا بَرْزَخًا وَحِجْرًا مَحْجُورًا) [الفرقان: 53].

[zeze321147]

im ready to pay to save it

[cryteeek]

Rammstein !!

[123fukyou]

Mutter!

[MrGingerwarrior2u]

I have travelled across Kazakhstan twice by motorcycle and both times suffered terrible chest infections withing a couple of months of my visits like nothing I have had before or since.. many people die from unknown causes but I understand its from the salt and pesticides used on the cotton crops being blown around. Russia also did most of its nuclear testing in Kazakhstan, they also suffered terrible starvation at the hands of the Russia you could say genocide. All in all they have had it tough

[SvenTviking]

Its like the communists used to find the most utterly incompetant people and gave them the most important jobs.

[antred11]

@SvenTviking True, but the jury is still out on whether we're really any better than the commies in that regard ...

[AndrewSH2012]

Chuck Norris drank the Aral Sea dry

[stifawn2025]

Wow you guys are good. How original polution

[bakinek]

so sad what humans can do.

[chanctonbury63]

Good old Soviet central planning. Nothing quite like it!

[andell1]

@chanctonbury63 You talk about it as if this couldn't or wouldn't happen anywhere else!

Fact is every body of water on the planet is in danger when corporations put profit ahead of sustainability, and governments act only to facilitate the exploitation of resources that should be governed within the scope of the public trust!

[chanctonbury63]

@andell1 Im talking about the Aral Sea and that ones down to Soviet planning.

[andell1]

@chanctonbury63 Yes, and I'm saying that this could and in fact will happen anywhere that governments put the hunger of markets ahead of their own people.

Were it not for the global market economy's demand for cotton, there would never have been any need to plan the diversion of water from the Amu Darya river in the first place.

Of course the Aral sea also was a very shallow sea...which likely also contributed to it's rapid demise.

[Ashmansworth]

Amazing, go to Google map key in "Aral Sea" the map shows all of the sea is there, now click to Satelite . and "poof" its gone, back to map, then to satelite? wounder why they have done that?

[MaestroTJS]

I stumbled on the Aral Sea catastrophe completely by accident but have been researching it since then. Apparently the south-east portion has dried up and the areas to the north and west are separated. It completely blew my mind that such an enormous body of water could disappear the way it has.

It is also very disappointing to see that this has had virtually no media coverage at all in the West/North America. I know it's not "our" problem, but it could be a wake-up call to us.

[inputs11]

thanks for the good work.

[monster4josh]

I enjoyed your video tremendously. I can't believe 5 people could "dislike" what you have to show, for the images speak for themselves. I borrowed your textual information about the region because it seems like the best research that I have read on the topic. Thank you!

[debashir]

@monster4josh, you are welcome! It's me who must express his gratitude, I'm glad you liked the video, seriously.

[monster4josh]

The idea that mother nature will always repair itself is naive at best, and at worst fatal...for land and man. Assuming that such a notion were factual, will man be around to enjoy the rebirth, or will he pollute himself into oblivion in the name of profit? Take a look at how the Aral's environmental contamination is affecting the people of the region. This is truly catastrophic.

[XDTheKingKingTheXD]

@debashir What is this version of 'Rammstein - Seemann' called? :)

[ulverup]

@XDTheKingKingTheXD t think the song is " mutter " not seeman

[XDTheKingKingTheXD]

@ulverup oh, yeah just noticed :p

[hyperkid321]

usally i will disagree on this type of docmentary in this type of style but no shit

[TheKing0fHalo]

Song name?

[MafiaGENGTEAM1970]

Wow a lot Star Trek Space ship on land

[elitelawlie]

Why and how could this sort of disaster happen?

[lizakgaborka]

cool music!

Who is the perforence?

[renegadeshai]

One of the rivers is back in (on the Kazakstan side) and it feels back up slowly :)

[Khamomil]

How can the Aral Sea replenish itself unless the 2 big rivers that feed it are allowed again instead of diverting their waters for irrigation? Is cotton still being grown in the river basins? What a disaster. The sea bottom doesn't let anything grow. Was the water salt or sweet?

[m3850d]

@Khamomil There might be a way to continue agriculture and save/restore the lake to its former glory.

The irrigation channels are poorly built so up to 70% of water is lost in those channels. The solution might be to repair those channels by making a waterproof layer so the water isn't wasted. But that would take a lot of time ad it would be expensive...

[Khamomil]

@m3850d Thanks for the info. The populations that depended on the Aral sea would benefit if it was full again, needless to say. All the culture of fishing etc. When I see the young living in poverty amidst the hulls of the ships it breaks my heart. The influence on climate that the Sea had is also very beneficial even in distant lands. People would be willing to do the work of fixing the irrigation channels, a consensus is needed from all concerned and the funds too.

[TheJohhnyrotten]

This should be on the main news EVERY NIGHT, not in some obscure corner of you tube

[TSM8088]

This has happened with the Colorado River in the US and is now taking place with the Great Lakes also... Shameful.

[MrGingerwarrior2u]

I was out there in 2008 and the last two boats were being cut up and stolen for scrap.. there is a lot of mis-information about the levels rising again.. we met the guy who was responsible for taking the measurements and had lunch in his house.. see my Kazakhstan slide show vid for more..

[Cardshark128RS]

some damn good scrap metal right there

[kittylactose]

i thought the area is now a now a toxic wasteland and you need a gas mask or something, but the part where the guys were driving in the car had no breathing protection.

[MeMrecious]

Great video. Thank you.

It really is like visiting ship wrecks at the bottom of the sea with no sea.

Sea wrecks at the bottom of sea, ships that never actually sunk

[IanHunedoara8]

Looks like a nightmarish futuristic movie scenario except for the fact its real and now.

[davazno1]

This is disaster ?!?! Wait untill the world population reaches 15 billion people, than you'll see disasters like never before .

[Herimia]

catacolismic

[garioldwin]

until human's exist nothing can be done to stop this . the nature will recover after we are gone .

[Theredhot]

Man.. Im so sad now..

[Bllackguard666]

UE ship haven! OMG...wish I could go.

[Ariana07]

I am afraid it is already too late... Perhaps they can save a part of it...

[BillMah1]

Nice music. A bit artsy with the pictures of inside of old ship wrecks ... it would have been more powerful to show the existing sea and how the pollution is affecting the local populations. Also, with the addition of a new dam there is apparently an input of fresh in parts of the sea that is bringing back some of the fishing.

[Chrisduden]

How come it be? Where's all the water now? Because Hydogen og Oxygen dont just desapier

[jyon9689]

@Chrisduden The A.S. has no outlets. Evaporation was the only natural cause of water loss. The Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers were enough to maintain the level of the sea, but their flow has been completely diverted for irrigation uses. Therefore, water is lost, but not replenished.

[achilleskocaeli]

unbelievable

[rrmfg]

This sad and terrifying sight is in some ways a monument to the colossal failure of Communism and the horrific price in human suffering it has caused. In a way, the Aral Sea's remains are the very epicenter of the Ash heap of history that Ronald Reagan spoke of when he predicted the fate of Communism.

[Clausewitzz]

@rrmfg

Whats worse is that the goverments over there afther Communism fell arnt much better, only Kazachstan made investments for restoring.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan increased the irrigation from the Amu Darya river.

And in Turkmenistan it gets even more crazy, there some dictator regime wants to create a canal from the Amu Darya river several hunderd miles trough desert land to create their own lake in some depression.

[rinconsurfers]

its true what a wise man once said "The world will be at peace once the last human has died" Its alittle extreme but fuck its the truth

[dyingangelo]

its really hard to believe this thing happened... this is so sad

[mraint85008]

its that new weapon they are working on, in that part of the world

[Ashvegian]

I feel a little bit like a perverted/stalker/insane murderer due to your camera-work..from low angles and looking out of crevices...it's really sifty... by the soundtrack is very groovy though. cheers debashir

[MrBuckwilliam]

truly horrifying!!! we are dooming ourselves. if this can happen here it can happen anywhere. lakes huron, ontario, michigan, erie and st.clair... great slave, winnipeg. it scares the shit outta me... a whole planet of dry lake beds.

thank you for sharing this one debashir... btw, lake huron has dropped at least six feet in the last six years, evaporation they say

[PeePeeMouthMarquez]

so they got more land... is that a problem? i mean theres people in the world who don't even have their own land.

[iamx80]

it's too late

[FreeFalcon2]

I'm starting to believe is too late too save our planet, ourselves and that this is just the beginning of the end. :(

But anyway, I guess we don't lose anything by trying, right?

[ruiportoful]

el mar aral ya no debe llamarse mar aral si no desierto aral

[JessicaTG2008]

I have been reading about this recently. What a shame and exactly the outcome you would expect from human intervention. The even more saddening part aside from the lost lives, industry and grandeur of the lake itself, is if man could reverse and bring it back to it's previous level, it will take 100s of years to even be sustainable for basic life. It amazes me to no end, the more educated humans get, computerized and techologically dependant we are, we are as immature as infants in real life.

[SPECTORMAN1973]

JessicaTG2008 I don't know why Liberals always blame " Humans" for the problems of the World, I guess it makes them sound Hip, "Educated Humans" did not cause this problem, Russian Bureaucrats caused it, and Russian Bureaucrats I am sorry to say are not Educated or Human, their Garbage, their Evil, their Scum. When the Humans are not worried about being Politically Correct, will they be able to fix this Problem.

[redjupiter2]

@SPECTORMAN1973 As long as any human thinks he is above another (as you do) this will happen. Do you really not see the massive irony in your own uneducated statements?

[locopazzo]

There are actually efforts being made to reverse this desertification. The Kazakh government with an international team has put forward a promissing plan consisting in a series of dams athat have proved succesful in rising water levels. Repopulation however is still an issue. Saline levels are high for sustainable life. This is not the only disaster inherited from Soviet times in Kazakhstan....what a about contamination in Semipalatinsk?!

[niclato]

All ruined,what a disaster for the famous ARAL SEA.

[gentedimare84]

it looks like kenshiro's world

[live4eversqn]

disaster! I must see the lake myself before it will dissapear completely!

[debashir]

Good luck in all your endeavors, my friend.

[Komnenit]

@live4eversqn Dont Worry.

Kazakhstan and its government is helping for saving the Northern Aral Sea, which is growing and is being saved from complete drying....I cant say the same for the South Aral Sea, which is drying more and more every year...

[Terabass]

"Until it's not too late" . Epic fail

[LightsEShadows]

typical Toxic Comunism's sh*t.

[locopazzo]

..that's what comes from over fishing alas...

[skamp25]

@locopazzo

You aren't trying to say the shrinking of the Aral Sea was due to overfishing are you?

[locopazzo]

@skamp25 ....maybe it be da ice cap melting thing ...the o-zone in da sky

[Clausewitzz]

Strange how im living in a country whos making land out of the sea for centurys and is still doing it.

While over there a piece of land several times the size of my country has formed out of the sea in the last decades.

Only something like a canal or pipeline from the Caspian sea can really save this.

However then the Caspian sea will need their own canal to the Black sea otherwise the Caspian sea will start to shrink, but its not an unthinkable solution and mabey the only real one.

[andykld]

it's sad :(

[marioismyhomie]

freakin soviets

[seze6624]

I strongly disagree at the fact that we are killing mother nature....Earth will always repair itself....we are only killing ourselves.....

[jammydodger5000]

now that's food for thought

[shfbdfi1273]

The Russian stole their sea!

[andell1]

@shfbdfi1273 The Aral sea could've been saved back in 1990...had Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan been willing to invest the money and change their practices.

To this vary day, authoritarian Uzbekistan refuses to stop diverting water from the Amu Darya river for cotton irrigation...as a result, the South Aral Sea will eventually disappear entirely!

Kazakhstan has shown more willingness to help restore the North Aral Sea...but the Aral Sea is indeed one of the greatest Environmental disasters!

[patladj]

Two planets meet and ask each other: - Oh, how blue and green you are!!! - says the first one. - Why are so grey and faded? - asks the other one. - Phew...! - answers the first one - horrible, if you know I caught humans :D - Don't worry it goes away quickly, no more then several thousand years :D I also had humans recently :D

[ZombieDawgs]

bfffhahahaha

no.

[ozmusic657]

@seze6624 stop being such a faggot we're the lords of the earth

[k0she4ka]

..i'm shocked.. it's the biggest ecological catastrophy of mankind..

and all was about money.. like someone said..we are destroing all that mother nature gave us.. we are the cause of her slow death..

[LightsEShadows]

nope about money, but about tipical comunist f... crazy policy, with no matter about human life and security or environment. Chernobyl, Mayak, Aral etc.

[lq91]

it's shocking how the desert-looking landscape used to be the seabed .

SIGHS.

):

[AaronSwink]

They are building the extended dam. At least one country in the affected area that has the oil money and World Bank help is doing something to fix that nightmare. I believe I read that everything will be done in 2010 and by the, the northern edge of the NAS will be back to pre-1960 levels. 

However one can only imagine what KZ would think after spending huge sums of money to fix the NAS only to be nailed by the environmental destruction in the south.

[LouisWilde]

this video is quite shocking....liked it, and the music too( i now the song is mutter from rammstein, but could somebody tell me the title of the remix, or where could i dl it? thx anyway)

[04jransomp]

It's pritty amazing how one industry can have such a devistating effect on an area.

[90NITRO]

mamma mia ...

[partylwc]

the funny thing is once you put water back in the once sea; those ships are gonna start floating around LOL

[australianmade74]

was this fresh water?

[sega31098]

No, the Aral Sea is a saltwater lake.

If you're talking about the water from the dike, then yes, the water flowing INTO the lake is freshwater.

[mali9ski]

yes and a disaster but it was an attempt to improve the lives of the people of that place unfortunately failed!

but the USA was in a bikini atoll of destruction! yankees look at what you do well

[2dank]

@mali9ski can you explain what happened ? i am unfamiliar 

[alantsm]

'until its not too late' wtf does that mean?? i think effort needs to be focused on the southern lake, in Uzbekistan, the dyke on the berg straight has been a success, but now we need to address the problem that has overwhelmed so many experts in the south.

[AaronSwink]

Honestly, there is no way that any kind of plan would work. Right now, all anyone sees is ungodly sums of money to redo the canals, fix the irrigation system, charge for and clean the water, undo the cotton monoculture, and have all affected nations actually agree on a water sharing plan.

What they don't realize or want to address is that the environmental costs in the future will far outweigh the current cost of fixing their entire agricultural way of life.

[Siobhanluvsu]

I give ideas to a young adult's magazine called "Junior Scholastic" as a student advisor. I will ask them to print something about the Aral Sea in the magazine, and I'll send them this link. Hopefully we'll be able to print it. This defineitely needs to be more publicized in the U.S.

[Siobhanluvsu]

Sad story, but very well done video. You obviously put a lot of time into this. Fantastic video.

[tokebokarlsson]

Excellent video!

[ClothCanopy]

The story of the Aral Sea is a fascinating one. Excellent video.

[unesly]

Как жаль!! Я плачу!

[TEATROINRIVOLTA]

Desolation is the future for all the people in this world, if the politycal men don't change his mind... Thanks for this vibrant video

[MardyWe]

Hey!

I'm doing a presentation about this subject and I very much like your footage at the end where you see the sea disappear. Can you maybe send me this video so I can use it for school? I have an oral exam and could really use this!

Nice work!

Marit Weerheijm

[Ereshkigal420]

Thats some intense shit as well as the situation with pollution us humans put ourselves in.

[alantsm]

its the soviets fault.

[explorador26]

lo mismo querían hacer con el lago Titicaca

[DirtySouthMafia11th]

Aral sea is coming back, I'm not judging it only by Google, but there was a video on YouTube with Australian woman, who was there and interviewed people back there and shot a scientific movie about it!!! So let's pray for Aral sea, but the bigger problem is that only Kazakh part of Aral sea is coming back to live, because in Uzbekistan they don't have enough money to help Aral SEA!!!

[DirtySouthMafia11th]

Please if you don't believe me, just watch the video named: Aral Sea - Kazakhstan on YouTube

[XYAD75]

only a very small proportion of the former sea, the far north, is being restored.

[mojave19]

It's happening again in California's Salton Sea.

[SavingJackSparrow]

this just shows the world the evil's of greed & success at any cost no matter how many people have to suffer in its wake. Sincerely The voice of common sense in a world seriously lacking it.

[jayeshchoudhari]

@SavingJackSparrow

you just blamed it to Evil and greed of people...but isn't it ironic..it was the soviets..the communists who are responsible for this catastrophe who formed their government saying that they are against the EVIL and GREEDY capitalist countries.....

[Bubblesnail123]

I am ARAL!!!!

[jayeshchoudhari]

So sad...dumb soviets

[whooperpooper86]

i wish you had more ship footage

[mikethemike232]

A beautiful clip - almost too beautiful for the catastrophe it shows.

[doctortabby]

I must say that I do get very tired of the environmental extremists; however I suppose such sickening examples environmental irresponibility (to use a kind term) as demonstrated here are bound to spawn such an attitude of overkill in many individuals. What has happened to the Aral is simply a crime against humanity and everything else good. Thanks for such a nice attention grabbing and interest keeping post. Do you have any more footage of when the Aral was in a healthier state?

[tastysalad]

those ships were truly eerie..

[Caimingchang]

What's the name of the song that starts at 00:39?

[FunnyDigestion]

Spending a lot of time on those sunken ships, kinda makes everything look cooler than it really is-- I mean, most of the land is just empty wasteland, not badass dead galleons and stuff..

Nice video though

[allen00279]

what is the song name

[zeraphinxalvar]

its an instrumental version of german band rammstein "mutter" (mother)

[qqqqssssxxxx]

Interesting video! The ship's wind-blown door at 2:23 looked creepy, accompanied by a nice remix of Rammstein's Mutter! I'd like to visit this place one day and see all that you've shown with my own eyes.

[debashir]

I'm glad you liked it!

[wickedlament]

@qqqqssssxxxx where can i find this song. i really like rammstein this is really enjoyable

[JoeFromScunny]

Didn't the Soviets drain it? I think the Kazhakstans (sorry about the spelling) are trying to bring it back through dams, but it's not cheap.

[debashir]

One dam has been built already other dam is on the turn, costing around 80-100 millions backs each, they only help to sustain the water level in Lesser Aral due to evaporation loss, southern bigger Aral is ireversibly dead.

Kazakstan would be right spell btw.

[JoeFromScunny]

Thanks, that was very interesting!

[Herimia]

@JoeFromScunny the soviets would of been able to drain the aral sea to this level THAT IS ALOT OF WATER.

[AeroPolice]

omg from sea to nothing....

[armage16]

amazing

[lilleo1968]

We should remember this in regards to the Great lakes. Screw the rest of the country let them get their water some place else...

[cortezawwris]

You are lucky to live near great lakes freshwater is more rare that oil. But people worry about oil when all the fresh water is going away.

[TheRiderPaulRevere]

oh yeah?

[aziqbal]

fucking russians they always screw things up they are truly useless backward communists

[cortezawwris]

retarded yank screw things up all over the world

[antiquesroadshow101]

retarted generalizers, both of you. Russians and americans have made their equal shares in mistakes, but were all Earthlings as a whole. We all need to start embracing that fact.

[zmiy73]

A blind fool you must be.

[BoneThugsss]

hey, google earth sucks, in google earth it seems like the big aral is getting back but its fake, the big aral now is getting every day thinner, only the small aral is getting bigger, so the satelllite foto of the big aral is very old

[Eisflieger]

Very suggestive and melodramatic. But these are old news! Have a look at google earth. The sea is back! rain clouds are back. The salt and poison vanishes. The apocalypse was man made? The recovery too!

[asbochamp]

Keep up the good work, Debashir. If there is a solution to the heartbreaking tragedies that greed and ignorance inflict on our world then the beginning of that solution - and maybe, in one sense, all of that solution - must be for all of us to do all we can to maintain awareness of such murderous stupidity.

[efsun06]

cok uzucu bir durum ;-(

sometimes i hate humans! we are destroying everything we touch!

[shelpek]

good job man

[Samuella133]

korabli v pustyne...strashno ..