Lake Karachay is located in the southern Ural Mountains in the Chelyabinsk region of eastern Russia and is currently considered the most polluted and dangerous place on Earth.
The name of the lake means “black water” or “black creek” in the local language, referring to its severe level of pollution.
In less than an hour at Lake Karachay, you can be exposed to a lethal dose of radiation, reaching up to 600 Roentgen. The high levels of radiation emanating from Karachay are due to the lake’s proximity to the Mayak Production Association, one of the largest and most notorious nuclear facilities in Russia.
Mayak was established in the 1940s when the former Soviet Union relocated its weapon production to the east to avoid Nazi invasion. This facility was once one of Russia’s most important atomic weapon production plants and was kept secret from foreign scrutiny for 45 years.
It was only after Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree to open the area in 1992 that Western scientists were able to access the site, and they immediately declared it the most polluted place on the planet.
The name of the lake means “black water” or “black creek” in the local language, highlighting its severe pollution levels.
Lake Karachay is the most polluted place in the world.
During decades of secrecy, engineers at Mayak primarily engaged in nuclear melting operations and dumped radioactive waste into nearby rivers and lakes. The waste released into the lake was a mixture of radioactive elements, including long-lived fission products such as Strontium-90 and Cesium-137, which have half-lives of approximately 60 years.
Once the public became aware of this nuclear facility, the Chelyabinsk region witnessed a 21% increase in cancer cases, a 25% rise in congenital disabilities, and a 41% increase in leukemia cases.
The nearby Techa River, which provides water to many local villages, was so polluted that up to 65% of residents suffered from radiation-related illnesses.
It wasn’t until the mid-1950s that the dumping of nuclear waste into nearby rivers and lakes ceased, replaced by pumping it into a series of storage tanks. By September 1957, these tanks exploded with the force equivalent to about 85 tons of TNT, spraying nearly 70 tons of radioactive waste over 1.6 kilometers into the air.
Radioactive dust clouds spread cesium and strontium isotopes over an area of 23,309 square kilometers, affecting approximately 270,000 people and their food supplies.
Lake Karachay is gradually drying up, exposing radioactive sediment at the bottom, with wind blowing radioactive dust everywhere.
In light of the destroyed nuclear waste containment system, authorities decided to direct radioactive waste from Malak directly into Lake Karachay, which has no surface drainage, leading engineers to optimistically believe that what was dumped would be disposed of indefinitely.
Everything went smoothly for about ten years until a severe drought struck the entire Chelyabinsk region. Lake Karachay gradually began to dry up, revealing radioactive sediment at the lake’s bottom. Toxic dust, including radioactive Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and other harmful elements, began to spread everywhere.
Today, many vast areas of the Chelyabinsk region remain uninhabited due to the aftermath of river and lake radioactive pollution, the 1957 explosion, and the drought of 1967. The surface of Lake Karachay is now more concrete than water, yet its pollution remains uncontrolled.
Estimates suggest that nearly 1 billion gallons of groundwater in the area have been contaminated with 5 megacuries of radioactive nuclides. Even today, local residents are unaware of the actual amount of radioactive isotopes present in the crops grown on their land.
In recent years, a $263 million cleanup project has achieved some success. In 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Lake Karachay had been filled with rock and specialized concrete blocks. According to Mayak’s website, monitoring during the first 10 months after sealing the lake showed a significant reduction in radioactive nuclide deposition on the surface, with groundwater radiation levels remaining within safe limits. However, according to reports shared by the IAEA, even if Lake Karachay were to disappear permanently from Earth, the issues related to it would still persist.
