How the Soviet Union Drained the Aral Sea and Killed an Entire Region

Описание: The Aral Sea disaster is one of the worst environmental collapses in modern history, when Soviet irrigation projects diverted two rivers and erased the fourth-largest lake on Earth. This documentary shows how a single water diversion plan turned a thriving fishing sea into a toxic desert and destroyed entire communities in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

In the 1960s, planners redirected the Amu Darya and Syr Darya to grow cotton in the desert. The math looked simple on paper. Less water reached the Aral Sea each year. The shoreline retreated. Salinity spiked. Fish died. Ports were left stranded miles from water.

What followed wasn’t a dramatic explosion — it was slow, mechanical failure. Ships grounded in sand. An industry collapsed. Then the exposed seabed released pesticide-filled dust storms that poisoned farms, lungs, and entire towns.

Today, the Aralkum Desert covers what used to be open water. Rusting boats sit where waves once moved. A partial dam saved the northern basin, but the southern sea is gone for good.

This is not a natural disaster. It’s a system failure caused by human decisions — and a clear lesson in what happens when engineering ignores ecology.

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#AralSea #EnvironmentalDisaster #HistoryDocumentary #SovietHistory #ClimateChange #Geography #SystemCollapse

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