Today in History - October 22: How the quest for 'white gold' shrank an entire sea
Scientists on October 22, 1990, published stunning evidence about the shrinking of a huge inland sea, claiming it was an environmental catastrophe.
The Aral Sea in Central Asia, once the fourth-largest area of fresh water in the world, had shrunk by two-thirds, experts from the UK Royal Geographical Society told the BBC.
Shortly after the fall of the former Soviet Union, the society's scientists were permitted to enter the area straddling modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
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The once thriving Aral Sea region has been turned into a desert-like wasteland. AP
What they found was stunning.
The sea level had fallen in depth by more than 14 metres since the 1960s, endangering the lives of the four million inhabitants of the region.
The region's economy had been battered by the demise of a once-thriving fishing industry, while climate change ushered in longer colder winters and shorter, drier summers.
People living around the Aral Sea were suffering chemical poisoning, largely caused by the abandoned rusting hulks of ships on the dry seabed.
The rate of infant mortality was worse than any other developing country, with 10 per cent of children dying in their first year.
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A former fisherman sits on an abandoned trawler in the Aral Sea in Central Asia. AP
Salty, polluted drinking water caused levels of cancer and kidney disease to spike.
For decades, the Aral — fed by rivers relying heavily on glacial melt, and intersecting the landlocked countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — held metres-long fish, caught and shipped across the Soviet Union.
The region prospered, and thousands of migrants from across Asia and Europe moved to the Aral's shores, for jobs popping up everywhere from canning factories to luxury vacation resorts.
But in the 1920s, the Soviet government began to drain the sea for irrigation of cotton, known as "white gold" for its high value, and other cash crops.
The move involved diverting water from the two main sources of the Aral Sea to new cotton fields, heavily dependent on regular water supply.
The grave of a man who once lived near the Aral Sea in Central Asia in front of his abandoned house. AP
While the new cotton industry thrived, the human-made changes to the environment caused the Aral Sea to split by the late 1980s.
The 1990 report by the British scientists triggered calls for international action to save the Aral Sea.
The United Nations Development Program calls the destruction of the Aral Sea "the most staggering disaster of the 20th century".
In the decades since, climate change has worsened the environmental and health damage.
Most seriously, doctors have found local people are suffering genetic damage.
This means their children and grandchildren might be more susceptible to cancer as a result of the pesticide residues from the cotton fields.
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