Stranded trawlers of the Aral Sea

Envisat image of Aral Sea’s shoreline from 2006 to 2009

Aral Sea which lies between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was once amongst the 4 largest lakes in the world. It has now shrunk to 10% of its original size. Global Warming has nothing to do with this disaster. The Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since 1960's when the Soviets started diverting the rivers which fed into the lake, for irrigation purposes.

Two weeks ago, the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the drying of the Aral Sea was one of the world's most shocking disasters.

One of the consequences of the lake's dwindling size has been the death of the fishing industry on the lake and fishing trawlers have been left stranded in what are now sandy wastelands.

Mibazaar has put together this Google Maps mashup to take you on a tour of some of the stranded trawlers that once fished these waters.

So as the Aral Sea was shrinking it left behind trawlers which had no where to go and were stranded. Some of these stranded trawlers can be clearly seen in Google Maps. Virender Ajmani, the author of the mashp has counted 10 but it's obvious there are many many more. If you find more, please do let him know and he will add it to this map.

Links :

• ESA : Declining Aral Sea
• Journeymen pictures video
• Shipwrecks around Muynak / in Fotopedia
• Aral Sea disaster awareness on Facebook