Ghosts from the Ocean that Died - The Ship Graveyard in Aral

In 1980, the Aral Sea was one of the world's largest lakes in the world - comprising a rough area of approximately 2,600 square miles on its surface. Used for transportation, fishing, and irrigation, many legends surrounded the landlocked sea, and an entire ecosystem depended on it for life. But when the Soviet Union attempted to make use of it to provide for the farms around it, something terrible began to happen. And the sea which once had such a rich history of legends and stories began to die - and new stories began to arise.

The Aral Sea is one of those ecological horror stories that tells us what happens when human hands intervene in an area too much, and how even a vast and apparently indomitable sea can be torn down given sufficient intervention by outside forces. It is both a story of brilliant ingenuity and tragic short-sightedness. No longer do vast swathes of water grace this barren plain.

Now all that remains are the sound of the wind shrieking in your ears and the massive hollowed out corpses of ships long sunk only to rise again in the vast spaces of emptiness. But some say there is something else lurking in this massive unsettled desert - something that once was human.

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