Lake Karachay

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Lake Karachay (Russian: Карача́й), sometimes spelled Karachai is a small lake in the southern Ural mountains in eastern Russia. Starting in 1951 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. The lake accumulated some 4.44 exabecquerels (EBq) of radioactivity, including 3.6 EBq of Caesium-137 and 0.74 EBq of Strontium-90.

The radiation level at the shore of the lake is 600 röntgens per hour, more than sufficient to kill a human within an hour.

History

Starting in the 1960s, the lake began to dry out; its area dropped from 0.5 km2 in 1951 to 0.15 km2 by the end of 1993. 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.

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, inspired the concept album One Hour by the Concrete Lake, by Pain of Salvation, an album discussing the pain local residents went through because of the severe contamination.