Lake Karachay

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lake Karachay (Russian: Карача́й), sometimes spelled Karachai is a small lake in the southern Ural mountains in eastern Russia. Starting in 1951^[1] the Soviet Union used Karachay as a dumping site for radioactive waste from Mayak, the nearby nuclear waste storage and reprocessing facility, located near the town of Ozyorsk (then called Chelyabinsk-40).

According to a Worldwatch Institute report on nuclear waste, Karachay is the "most polluted spot" on Earth.^[2] The lake accumulated some 4.44 exa becquerels (EBq) of radioactivity ^[3], including 3.6 EBq of Caesium-137 and 0.74 EBq of Strontium-90^[1]. For comparison, the Chernobyl disaster released from 5 to 12 EBq of radioactivity, however this radiation is not concentrated in one location.

The radiation level at the shore of the lake is 600 röntgens per hour^[4]^[5], more than sufficient to give a lethal dose to a human within an hour.

"If Lake Karachay's radioactive load leaks into the Arctic Ocean, one of the planet's last great wildemesses, it could travel halfway across the globe." ^[6]

[edit] History

Starting in the 1960s, the lake began to dry out; its area dropped from 0.5 km² in 1951^[1] to 0.15 km² by the end of 1993 ^[7]. In 1968, following a drought in the region, the wind carried radioactive dust away from the dried area of the lake, irradiating half a million people with 185 petabecquerels of radiation^[3].

Between 1978 and 1986 the lake was filled with almost 10,000 hollow concrete blocks to prevent sediments from shifting. The lake, which is now entirely covered by concrete, is referred to in the concept album One Hour by the Concrete Lake, by Pain of Salvation.