The most deadly lakes of our planet. Photo

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Самые смертоносные озера нашей планеты. ФотоIn a world of many mysterious and unusual.

If you were asked to list the strangest natural phenomena on Earth, it is likely that no one would call a “lake”. And a very good reason. It turns out that these seemingly serene waters fraught with some of the craziest and strangest surprises of the natural world.

Mysterious lake appears out of nowhere, to the lake-killer, destroying everything within several kilometers from its shores, I give you ten of the most unusual and bizarre lakes in the world!

10. Lake Gafsa (Gafsa Lake), Tunisia

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Quite early in his life, each of us understands that nothing can appear out of nowhere. Apparently, in the Gafsa lake, which is located in Tunis, this is not true.

One day in 2014 a group of Tunisian shepherds led the animals on a familiar pasture. Imagine their surprise when they reached it and found a huge lake on the place where was the meadow. Appeared the lake had an incredibly attractive azure shade.

Gafsa is an area in the territory of which in the past carried out the extraction of natural resources, and for the most part it has not been regulated. Scientists believe that the sudden appearance of lake Gafsa was the result of a break in the rock above the groundwater level, and groundwater came to the surface. Whatever the reason, it happened fast. One local resident said took place on that remote area for three weeks before, and this area was completely dry.

Although lake Gafsa originally had a translucent, blue water and manivshy to swim, it quickly became filled with algae, and is probably toxic to humans. But it doesn’t stop the locals coming there to swim. Because in the hot Tunisia even a pond full of green slime — better than nothing.

9. Roopkund Lake (Roopkund Lake), India

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There are certain things that no one would want to find in any body of water. Piranhas is one thing. The remains of hundreds of people who died a horrible death for another. However, this is exactly what British troops found in the winter of 1942 in the lake Roopkund.

Because it happened in wartime, the British naturally assumed they were on the scene of a brutal massacre of the Japanese. However, the truth was quite different.

When the bones were studied, it was found that they date back to the year 850. In addition, all these people were killed in the same way: with a blow to the head, causing their skulls were fractured. The nature of the injury does not correspond to any known type of weapon. What could happen to two hundred people died this way? The most possible answer, which is voiced by scientists is hailstones. In fact, very, very large hailstones.

In the vicinity of lake Roopkund famous old song about the goddess of the mountains, which has punished a group of travelers is enormous hail. Now it is believed that this folk memory of a real event and an unusual hail the size of a Golf ball that was falling blocks of solid ice, killing all 200 pilgrims who could not reach shelter. Over time, the valley was filled with water, eventually becoming overrun by skeletons lake Roopkund.

8. The Lake Nyos (Lake Nyos), Cameroon

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Imagine the scene: a man returns home after the weekend and discovers that his entire district is full of corpses. On the streets lie the bodies with an expression of horror on the faces of the dead. One immediately wonders what could have killed all those people. It was a blast? Or virus? The answer to this question can be much more strange: they could be killed nearby lake.

This is what happened in Cameroon in 1986. While the locals lay in their beds, lake Nyos unleashed a huge amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that the Earth took a deep breath. The effect was immediate and terrifying.

A cloud of lethal gas enveloped the region, destroying everything in its path. People and animals who were at a distance of 25 kilometers from the lake, suddenly fell to the ground, was experiencing difficulty with breathing and trying to breathe oxygen, suffocated by poisonous gas. The fire was out, children were dying in seconds. In a few minutes killed 1746 people and 3500 animals. Were destroyed entire villages. This disaster remains one of the strangest in the world.

What happened, called the Limnological catastrophe — physical phenomenon, the main component of which is harmful to all living things carbon dioxide emissions from an open reservoir. Lake Nyos was formed on the site of a volcanic crater rich in carbon dioxide (CO2).

Typically, these crater lakes release a small dose of carbon dioxide for a long time, but in lake Nyos, this poisonous gas for some reason are trapped, having accumulated a huge, deadly. He was kept at the bottom of the lake to until something — landslide, heavy rain on one side of the lake not excited about the water that has issued this giant bubble of toxic gas to the outside, destroyed all life at a distance of 25 kilometers.

7. Lake Peigneur (Lake Peigneur), Louisiana, USA

Unlike what happened to lake Nyos, the scientists know for sure what was the cause of the disaster at lake Peigneur. The workers of the company Texaco drilled a well in search of oil, accidentally breaking through the ceiling of the salt mine near the lake at a depth of 400 meters. What happened next was no less strange and scary.

The rockfall formed a funnel — a funnel, which turned into a powerful whirlpool. Water vortex increased in size more and more until it became a giant karst funnel, sasasasa within 3 hours more than 13 billion liters of water.

The entire lake began to disappear in a swirling mess of mud and terror. Giant whirlpool sucked the drilling platform, 11 barges, who was at that time at the lake, tug, dock, truck and home. Started a landslide in which surrounded the lake forest and the village began to go into the sinkhole.

A canal linking the lake with the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 20 kilometers, began to dry out along with departing the mine lake, so salt water from the Gulf of Mexico flowed in the opposite direction, filling the emptying of the lake. Imagine that a person pulls the stopper out of the bathroom, and not only all his house, but half of the whole area sucked down the drain. This was what happened to lake Peigneur.

Incredibly, this dirty and murky whirlpool of terror did not kill a single person. All fifty people on the lake and in the mine, in groups or alone, managed miraculously to avoid what was their true death.

6. Toxic lake in Baotou (Baotou Lake), Inner Mongolia

The lake in Baotou, China, is so new that he doesn’t even have real names. Instead, the reports refer to it simply as “Baotou toxic lake”. The word “toxic” in these three words speaks for itself.

Baotou is an artificial lake created by the extraction and processing of “rare earth” minerals necessary for the production of shiny iPhones. As such, it is one of the most polluted lakes on Earth.

To be face to face with this lake is akin to step into a dark nightmare. Virtually black surface of the lake is filled with black toxic sediments, resembles a real Hell on Earth. Here nothing can grow. All the coast painted black, like the lake itself. The result is a nightmarish, monochromatic world. A place that is as realistic as it is terrifying.

Perhaps the most strange lake in Baotou is the reason why it exists. In the most modern equipment uses special minerals such as cerium, through which we have touch phones. Many of these minerals are also used in green technologies such as wind turbines, electric cars. Minerals for such equipment are one of the largest export items of the city Baotou. All right: perhaps the most polluted lake on Earth was created through our love for environmentally friendly technologies.

5. Lake Natron (Lake Natron), Tanzania

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Sounds like a fairy tale: the lake, which magically turned into a frozen statue, all that touches its surface. However, the Natron in Tanzania — not the middle of the lake. Hidden deep in East Africa, it is surrounded by an eerie petrified statues of animals, too close accidentally approached its deadly water.

Of course, the lake Natron is not magical or cursed or something like that. Just his water-filled soda, a naturally occurring compound that contains a higher concentration of sodium carbonate (salt) and some sodium bicarbonate. They are also dangerously hot and have the alkalinity, which reaches pH 10. As a result, all who are trying to drink from the lake, die and plunge into the water. Then the soda is doing its job, obyzvestvleniya body and, in fact, turning them to stone.

For visitors it is an incredibly awesome sight. All that can be seen around the lake, these are dead statues, often of birds that died while trying to splash down on the surface.

4. The crater lake kawah Ijen (Kawah Ijen), Java, Indonesia

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At first glance, the crater lake kawah Ijen in Indonesia looks almost enticing, but this sky-blue lake on top of a volcano is molten core. It’s so full of sulfur that it periodically erupts neon-blue flame. How it looks hypnotic, and so is deadly: approaching the lake, it is possible to lose balance and die from the fumes emitted.

While the shores of the lake are burning and rampaging, it is a large tub filled with hydrochloric acid. The contents of the lake has a pH of 0, and can instantly melt everything it touches. Speaking of acid, the air around the lake is dangerous, therefore during his visit, the wearing of a gas mask is required. Unless, of course, no one wants to have his lungs looked like the lungs of a smoker who smoked six packs of cigarettes a day.

The crazy thing is in this lake? The fact that some people come here to work, dodging streams of shimmering blue fire and extracting the chunks of sulfur from the volcano.

3. Pitch Lake (Pitch Lake), Trinidad

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Pitch lake (“lake asphalt”) is perhaps the most appropriate name of all the lakes on our planet. This lake is entirely composed of liquid asphalt, the same one that is used for road construction and not only.

Better to believe in the word and don’t check: this lake is in some places so thick that you can walk on it… and so dangerously thin in other places that you can easily slip through the surface, disappearing forever in the dark depths.

The structure of the surface of the lake varies from thick and solid as a rock, until springy, as rubber, and is soft and fearful, like quicksand. Trees, large stones and all that jazz, falling into his arms, often gets stuck on the surface where the asphalt hardens around them, in essence, turning to stone.

A tip for those who are planning to visit this lake: while some tourists dare to swim in cleaner waters of the lake, it is as risky as it sounds the idea of a dip in the pavement.

2. “Lost lake” (Lost Lake), Oregon, USA

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As we already know by the example of the Gafsa lake, it can spontaneously appear out of nowhere. But what about the lake that disappears? “Lost lake” in Oregon is exactly that. Every summer there is a lake with a depth of almost 2.7 metres and an area of almost 34 hectares quietly disappears into the bowels of the earth, and every fall it’s back again, as if nothing had happened.

We do not mean “almost all dry” or something like that — it completely disappears. In its place there is a small meadow, on which, it seems, generally there are no traces of water. The reason why it happens — lava tube.

A lava tube is an unusual tunnels formed by uneven cooling of the lava flowing down from the slopes of the volcano, which was active 1,000 years ago.

They can have a diameter of less than 30 cm or to be big enough that they could go. In “Lost lake” there are two small lava tube. Autumn precipitation accumulate in lava tubes, and when rainfall exceeds their capacity, on the lake’s surface water seeps, and a small valley is filled with water.

By the summer the flow of water to the lake ceases, and she is drawn into a lava tube to fall, until a new go precipitation, and lava tubes will not be filled with water to the “Lost lake” appeared again on the surface.

1. Lake Yellowstone (Yellowstone Lake), USA

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Almost everyone has read or heard about the lake Yellowstone. Vast, peaceful and beautiful, it probably is quite far from the concept of “strange”, as many might think.

At least it’s on the surface. And if you dive in its calm depth, you notice a strange dome growing on the bottom. Is present the highest point of what has been called the Yellowstone SUPERVOLCANO. One day he will erupt, and then anyone will not find it.

Imagine that the lake is the face of a teenager, and the dome is a fat little zit that is just beginning to swell under the skin. With time this place will grow more and more, until “ripe” and ready to burst. Only it will not be a small stream of pus coming out. Instead, the bottom of the lake Yellowstone will open a giant magma chamber, which contained enough lava to fill the Grand Canyon more than 11 times.

If it will happen one day, there will be a disaster. Although because of this giant explosion will die relatively small number of people (estimates range in the area of 90,000 people), the Midwest is buried under a layer of ash, and mass crop failures will cause US damages and will bring disaster in the next few decades.

If you still thought that the lake Nyos — the most deadly, wait till you explode the Yellowstone lake.

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