10 creepiest lakes on our planet

Thousands of lost lives, mysterious inhabitants, poisonous waters - this is all about the terrible reservoirs of our planet. Even nice-looking lakes with clear water sometimes pose a great threat to those who decide to swim in them or even settle with a tent on the shore. We have selected the ten most terrible lakes on our planet.

1. Nios (Cameroon)

Lake Nyos can be called a mass killer. It became known throughout the world because of the terrible event that occurred on August 21, 1985. A cloud of asphyxiating gas rose from the lake, killing 1,746 residents of neighboring villages. Along with people, all livestock, birds and even insects died. Scientists from all over the world who arrived at the scene of the tragedy found that the lake was located in the crater of a volcano, which everyone considered to be dormant. Carbon dioxide entered the water through cracks from the bottom. Having accumulated a maximum concentration, the gas began to break out to the surface in huge bubbles. The wind carried the cloud of gas to the settlements, where it destroyed all living things. Scientists say that carbon dioxide continues to flow into the lake and another release can be expected.

2. Blue Lake (Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia)

Blue karst abyss in Kabardino-Balkaria. No river flows into the lake from the outside; it is fed by underground springs. The blue color of the lake is due to the high content of hydrogen sulfide in the water. What makes this lake creepy is the fact that no one has been able to figure out its depth. The fact is that the bottom consists of an extensive system of caves. Researchers have still not been able to figure out what the lowest point of this karst lake is. It is believed that under the Blue Lake is the largest system of underwater caves in the world.

3. Natron (Tanzania)

Lake Natron in Tanzania not only kills its inhabitants, but also mummifies their bodies. On the shores of the lake there are mummified flamingos, small birds, and bats. The creepiest thing is that the victims freeze in natural poses with their heads raised. It was as if they froze for a moment and remained that way forever. The water in the lake is bright red due to the microorganisms living in it, closer to the shore it is already orange, and in some places it is a normal color. The evaporation of the lake scares away large predators, and the absence of natural enemies attracts a huge number of birds and small animals. They live on the banks of the Natron, reproduce, and after death they are mummified. A large amount of hydrogen contained in water and increased alkalinity contribute to the release of soda, salt and lime. They prevent the remains of the inhabitants of the lake from decomposing.

4. Brosno (Tver region, Russia)

Not so far from Moscow, in the Tver region, there is Lake Brosno, in which, according to local residents, an ancient lizard lives. Like the famous Nessie, who gained worldwide fame. As in the case of the inhabitant of the Scottish lake, the Brosno monster was often seen, but no one managed to take a single clear photograph. Research into the reservoir did not lead to anything concrete. Scientists suggest that the reason for the emergence of legends about the ancient monster was the unusually large depth for small lake and decomposition processes at the bottom, which sometimes lead to the formation of huge bubbles of hydrogen sulfide. The escaping gas can easily capsize a small boat, which can be mistaken for a monster attack.

5. Michigan (USA)

Lake Michigan is one of the five great lakes scattered across the United States and Canada. Few people know that this reservoir has destroyed hundreds of lives. No ancient monster was seen here, the water here is far from dead, but nevertheless the lake is very dangerous. It's all about unpredictable undercurrents. They pose a huge risk for those who come to swim on the shores of Michigan, and there are many of them in the warm season. Undercurrents carry people away from the shore, and if a person falls into its power, then it is almost impossible to cope with it. In autumn, the lake becomes especially dangerous. Due to spontaneously occurring currents, huge waves arise on the surface of the water, from which sailors primarily suffer.

6. Dead Lake (Kazakhstan)

A lake with a creepy name is located in Kazakhstan. Locals They have long tried to avoid it, considering the body of water cursed. Here, anyone will tell you several scary stories about the mysterious disappearances of people, and not even necessarily in the lake itself. According to locals, there are countless drowned people at the bottom. Moreover, all the missing are visiting tourists who know nothing about the notoriety of the Dead Lake. By the way, this name does not come from mysterious disappearances, but because of the unusual properties of water. There is no life in the lake. No fish, no frogs, nothing. In addition, the water remains extremely cold even in the hot season, and the size of the lake does not decrease. And this is at a time when other reservoirs in this region are drying out almost twice as much due to the heat.

7. Lake of Death (Italy)

We know about Sicily thanks to the famous Sicilian mafia and Mount Etna, located on the island. But there is another (no less dangerous) attraction here - the Lake of Death, the water of which contains a high concentration of sulfuric acid. Life here is impossible by definition. Any organism that gets into local water dies within minutes. According to rumors, the Italian mafia used this lake to destroy unwanted people. The bodies of those who rejected the Offer That Cannot Be Refused now form part of the Lake of Death. No one can say whether this is true or not, because the water dissolved all the evidence.

8. Karachay (Russia)

Lake Karachay in the Urals is considered one of the most polluted in the world. Staying on the lake shore for a couple of hours is enough to receive hundreds of roentgens of radiation and die a painful death. The once living lake was destroyed in the fifties, when it began to be used as a storage facility for liquid radioactive waste. Now the water level has dropped significantly, revealing vast contaminated areas of the lake. The state annually allocates large amounts of funds to reduce the level of radiation in the reservoir. They plan to completely fill it up in the coming years, but this does not solve the problem of groundwater contamination.

The story happened a couple of years ago. We decided to go out in a crowd of 3 people, to culturally celebrate the night of Ivan Kupala on one of the lakes that are rich in the region where I now live.

The region is not completely remote, but the lake we chose is located at a sufficient distance from civilization, in a forest, surrounded by swamps. The lake itself is almost round, and if you stand with your back to the road that leads to this lake from the last signs of civilization, then there are two roads around the lake itself.

The one on the right is good enough for cars to pass through, and on the left it is barely passable for extreme pedestrians with deep puddles, snake holes and the threat of falling into the swamp that surrounds this lake on three sides if you move carelessly. On the opposite side of the lake, the roads again merge into one and go somewhere further, along an embankment through a swamp, towards the next lake, and maybe some signs of civilization that we did not get to.

A nook was chosen as the place for the celebration, fenced on both sides by bushes so as not to be too bright in case other companies were there.

We got to the place along a pedestrian, to put it mildly, uneven road, because we were slightly afraid that some drunken company would decide to take a breeze along the shore and, without noticing, run into us. We walked with flashlights, because, despite the summer night, it was still too dark in the forest so as not to trip and, having counted all the protrusions of the embankment with the ridge, end up in a swamp. We arrived, surprised that except for us, it seemed that no one else had gone to such a cold place and such a distance. They began to sort out supplies and prepare a fire, when the splash of water and a woman’s laughter were clearly heard from somewhere to the left.

- Who is this?

V., who after that time when my wife and I got lost in three pines, was most afraid that we would break into the night, or that the forester would come and, which is quite obvious, would give us a portion of real slaps in the face, perked up. He was not even reassured by the fact that our fire would be small, located according to all the rules, and there would be bottles of water nearby.

- Mermaids. “We won’t go swimming today,” I answered, as if automatically thinking about it.

Who is the site really? We passed by that place five minutes ago. And if there was another company there, we would definitely hear them, see a fire or the light from the lanterns. The bushes are not so dense that you cannot see or hear this. And the lake itself is small enough that the light from the lantern could be clearly seen even on the opposite shore, if only there was this light.

Meanwhile, the splashing of water and laughter continued. Forgetting about the fire for a while, we shone our flashlights onto the water, saw circles on the water, shrugged our shoulders, well, you never know, the fish splashed, it’s unlikely that anyone would go swimming in such cold weather. Where does women’s laughter come from then? Or maybe girls sit in the dark and tell funny stories. Shouldn’t you go near them now?

They turned off the lights, and, no longer paying attention to the renewed laughter and splashing of water, they finally lit a fire, put bread on sticks, we sat there, freezing, regretting that we didn’t take the barbecue and meat with us. We soon realized that we were hearing something else besides women’s silvery-ringing laughter and the noisy splashing of water. Someone was singing. , without words. Again a female voice, this time from the left and behind at the same time, clearly from the side of the swamp. But it is not clear where exactly. And it didn’t seem loud, but enough for us to hear the singing without interrupting the conversation.

- And who is this?

- Definitely not a forester. Swamp girl?

They fell silent and listened. That's right, singing. And it's unlike anything we've ever heard before. Doesn't look like any tape or digital recording. And what company in a sober, or even drunk, mind would settle down in a swamp and play music there? And strange music for an idle company, one melody that the site performs with one female voice for half an hour? We weren't sure exactly how long it took before we noticed her. I wanted to go have a look, but they dissuaded me by saying that in the dark, even with a flashlight, I would definitely fall into a swamp, and they would have to look for me with a forester and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and at the same time explain what the hell we were doing here at night.

For some reason, it became completely uncomfortable to sit, and we were quite chilled, so we had to put out the fire, collect our things and garbage, and move towards the house. By the way, when we passed by the place where we could hear the splashing of water and women’s laughter, we shone our lanterns in that direction. The shore was empty, only circles spread across the water surface. So we’ve been wondering ever since, what was it? But the singing accompanied us to the very road that led away from the site of the lake.

Probably many of you have met geographical map names that mention colors: Black, White, Yellow, Red Sea, Belukha Mountain and others. And some names, although of foreign origin, when translated also mean color. For example, Cape Cabo in Africa is “Green”, Greenland is “Green Country”, the Black Forest mountains are “Black Forest”... But there are especially many so-called colored lakes on our Earth. And these lakes really have a variety of unusual shades of water: red, crimson, blue-green, blue, yellow, white and even black. Not only Europe or Asia can boast of such wonders -colorful lakes scattered all over the globe!

There is, for example, in Carpathian mountains near the city of Svalyava at an altitude of 700 meters above sea level, Lake Sinyak. Sulfur compounds dissolved in it give the water an intense blue color. Many similar lakes are also located in the Caucasus mountains, but the queen of blue lakes is Lake Gek-Gel (“ Blue Lake"), located in Azerbaijan at an altitude of 1576 meters in the Asgun Gorge.
There are more White Lakes in the world. There are about twenty of them in Russia alone. At first glance, there is nothing unusual in such lakes. But as soon as the wind begins to whip up waves, the mirror-like surface of the water becomes covered with white caps. This water, eroding the clay banks, acquires a whitish color.
But on the island of Kunashir - one of the Kuril Islands - there is a milky-white lake, and... boiling. It is filled with a concentrated solution of sulfuric and hydrochloric acids; hot volcanic gases rise all the time from its bottom, which heat the water to a boil.

IN Western Siberia And Central Asia There are many lakes with a purple-red color. During sunset, they change their color slightly and look like bowls filled with molten gold.

There are truly unique raspberry lakes near Astrakhan, which are named so not only for their color, but also... for their smell, which is very reminiscent of the smell of ripe raspberries. By the way, the salt extracted from these lakes retains a persistent aroma of raspberries or violets and was once very valued at the royal court.

Another Raspberry Lake, located in the south of Siberia in the Kulundinskaya steppe, attracts not only its beauty. In the water of this lake, saturated with magnesium salts and soda, stones are constantly forming and growing (to the delight of the local population, who widely use this extraordinary building material).

Lakes with red water are also found in the Italian Alps, on the banks Mediterranean Sea in Western Europe, Bolivia, Japan.

By the way, on the Japanese island of Kyushu there is a unique two-color lake. One half of it became yellow due to sulfur impurities, and the other half became pink due to iron oxides.

Three colored lakes lie in the crater of the Keli Mutu volcano on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Two of them are painted in different shades of green, and the third is black and red. The internal forces of the earth and... chemistry are to blame for this. The lakes were formed in different craters of the volcano, rich in various minerals. All three lakes have romantic names. Ti-voye Ata Polo means “Lake of Enchanted People.” Tivoe Noea Moe-ri Koo Fai is translated as “Lake of Youths and Girls”, the third is Tivoe Ata Mboepoe - “Lake of Drowned Hopes”.

Many lakes have the name Sarykul or Sarikol, which means “yellow lake”. The largest of them is located in Chelyabinsk region Russia. The color of the water in this lake resembles highly diluted coffee due to the fact that many particles of clay are dissolved in it as a result of the constant erosion of the shores.

There are many black lakes on Earth. The color of the water in them is explained not only by the presence of peat. For example, in the “very, very” black lake in the world - Lake Kakhinaidaakh, located in Yakutia, the water is a kind of solution of soot, ash and soot. The phenomenon is explained by the fact that this lake is located in a depression where a fire raged several thousand years ago (coal burned there for several years). Later the fire was flooded with water.

A natural lake filled with real ink is located in Algeria, near the city of Sidi Bel Abbes. There are no fish or plants in the reservoir, since this ink created by nature is poisonous and is only suitable for writing with. For a long time, people could not understand how a substance so unusual for a body of water appeared. And recently, scientists, after conducting research and analysis, found out the reason for this phenomenon. It's all about the composition of the water of the two rivers flowing into this lake.

One of the rivers contains a huge amount of dissolved iron salts, the other contains all kinds of organic compounds, many of which are borrowed from peat bogs located in the river valley. Merging together into a lake basin, the streams interact with each other, and in the course of constantly occurring chemical reactions, the amount of ink is increasingly replenished.

Local residents have mixed feelings about this attraction. Some consider the lake a devilish obsession, others, on the contrary, try to benefit from it. That’s why it has half a dozen names. Among the most famous are “Eye of the Devil”, “Black Lake” and “Inkwell”. And ink from it is sold in stationery stores not only in Algeria, but also in a number of other countries.

A real asphalt lake is located on the island of Trinidad, located fifty kilometers from the northern part of Venezuela.

It is, of course, impossible to swim or swim in it. The lake is located in the crater of the former mud volcano, its depth is 90 meters, and its area is 46 hectares. A few kilometers away there is the settlement of La Brea. Coming out of the bowels of the earth through a volcano, oil lying at great depths loses volatile substances under the influence of evaporation, as a result of which it turns into asphalt. All this happens in the center of the lake basin. The place where more and more new portions of asphalt are born has been called “Mother Lake” for many years. It is thanks to him that Lake Trinidad retains its reserves, despite the fact that every year up to 150 thousand tons of asphalt are extracted from it, which is used for construction needs. Most of extracted is exported to the USA, England and many other countries. During the development of the deposits, more than five million tons of asphalt were extracted. At the same time, the lake level dropped by only half a meter.

On the surface of Lake Trinidad, except for its center, a person can safely move without the risk of getting stuck and going into the depths.

However, if, for example, someone dares to stay in one place for a long time and does not move, he will begin to slowly sink into the thickness of the asphalt. Almost any object left for a long time on the surface of the lake, some time later disappears into the black abyss. Scientists studying the deep depths of the “reservoir” discovered a whole cemetery of prehistoric animals, including the bones of mastodons, which became extinct during the Ice Age and, apparently, once lived in the area. It is likely that new amazing discoveries will be made in the miracle lake.

There are also reserves of asphalt in the Dead Sea, famous for its healing salt reserves, located on the border of Israel and Jordan. Many people know about the extreme salinity and special composition of its waters, but not everyone has heard about asphalt deposits. Accumulations of asphalt, resembling resin in appearance, periodically float to the surface of the water, surrender to the will of the waves and often wash ashore in large masses. Extraction of asphalt from Dead Sea has been going on since ancient times. It is used in a variety of industries: for road construction, tarring ships, producing all kinds of chemical products... Until the middle of our century, it was believed that the Dead Sea region was practically the only supplier of asphalt in the whole world. And only in the 50s new deposits were developed.

And the “deadest” body of water on the entire planet is rightfully considered the Lake of Death, on the island of Sicily.

Not only are its shores and waters devoid of all vegetation and living creatures, but swimming in it is also deadly. Any living creature caught in the waters of this scary lake, dies instantly. A person who plunges an arm or leg into the water feels a strong burning sensation and then watches in horror as the skin becomes covered with burns and blisters. The chemists who analyzed the contents of the lake were quite surprised. Water contains... sulfuric acid in quite high concentrations. In this regard, scientists have put forward several versions - for example, that the lake dissolves some unknown rocks and due to this is enriched with acids. However, research has confirmed another hypothesis. It turned out that concentrated sulfuric acid was released into the lake from two sources located at its bottom.

But the mystery of the Russian Empty Lake, located among many other lakes of the Kuznetsk Alatau, has not yet been solved. All the lakes around are teeming with fish, but in Pustoy it’s as fast as a ball, despite the fact that rivers flow from these fish lakes and flow into a fishless lake.

Researchers have repeatedly tried to populate a strange body of water various types fish, giving preference to the most unpretentious ones. However, nothing came of this - all the fish fell asleep, and the Empty remained empty. But what is most surprising is that chemists who analyzed the water for the possible content of toxic substances in it proved that it does not contain anything of the kind. The water of Empty Lake turned out to be almost the same as in neighboring lakes. And no one can still explain or at least put forward a plausible hypothesis about the phenomenon of this strange body of water. Whether it will be possible to solve this seemingly simple riddle - time will tell.

There are hundreds of lakes on Earth, with which all kinds of legends are associated, mystical, horror stories, abnormal incidents. That’s why they have the appropriate names: Dead, Smerdyache, Lake of Death. Some of them have been anomalous since time immemorial, others have become so thanks to human activity...

The dead stand like candles.

There are mysterious lakes that bring death to all living things on the territory of the former Soviet Union. One of them is located in Latvia. Its name is appropriate - Damn!

Local residents do not like Devil's Lake, telling visitors that if a person spends a long time on the shore, he is overcome by an inexplicable horror. Tourists do not always believe the warnings and settle down to rest near the water, but after half an hour or an hour they jump up and try to get as far away from the lake as possible. The most impressionable then end up in a mental hospital.

One of the local legends says that the Devil’s Lake has no bottom, so drowned people are never found.

Latvian scientists believe that the anomalies of the reservoir are caused by relief features and put forward several versions of the origin of the lake.

According to one of them, it is a meteorite crater about 70 meters deep, at the bottom of which radioactive radon gas accumulates, destroying all life in the lake.

Recent studies of the lake show that a powerful flow of energy constantly flows from the depths. That is why it is dangerous to be on the shore for more than an hour - a person can simply go crazy and go crazy. The strongest flow of energy hits in the middle of the lake. Perhaps that's why no one has ever managed to successfully swim across the damn body of water.

Near the village of Gerasimovka, in Kazakhstan, there is a small – one hundred meters long and sixty meters wide – Lake Dead.

It is surprising and sad that almost every year people drown in the Dead. Local residents try to avoid it and advise visiting tourists to do the same. However, that’s why they are tourists, to walk off the beaten path!

For unknown reasons, even in the midst of a hot summer, the lake does not dry out, and the water remains icy. There are no fish in the reservoir, no algae growing, and all types of aquatic insects are absolutely absent. And, by the way, you won’t find mosquitoes and flies on the shore either.

It is impossible to stay in the waters of the Dead Lake for a long time. The diver, even with a full tank, cannot stand it for more than three minutes, begins to choke for mysterious reasons and is forced to urgently rise to the surface.

Those who drown in the Dead are mostly visitors who do not listen to the advice of local residents or simply know nothing about the mysterious properties of the mysterious lake. What is noteworthy is that the drowned do not float to the surface, as usually happens after a few days, but stand at the bottom, straight, like candles.

Local scientists explain the lifelessness of the lake’s waters by some kind of gas escaping from the crevices of the bottom, but no special studies have been carried out there, and it is unknown when it will be possible to conduct them.

Where do drowned people disappear?

In the lake, located near Pereslavl-Zalessky (Russia), local residents do not swim - it is prohibited, but fishermen catch fish. Quite often they come across either fish breeds that are completely unknown even to scientists, or real mutants: one-eyed, three-eyed, with paws instead of fins, and even hairy!

Representatives from the regional sanitary and epidemiological station repeatedly took the lake water for analysis: the water is like water, closer in composition to mineral water. There are seven springs in the lake. The water level never drops, despite the fact that a river emerges from it and flows into the nearby Pleshcheyevo Lake, which supplies water to the city.

Every summer, tourists drown in the lake, not paying attention to the numerous prohibitory boards installed on the shore. However, so far no one has been able to answer - where do drowned people disappear? Fishermen once saw one of the bathing tourists swim into the middle of the lake, and then, screaming, disappear under the water. A moment later, an oil slick appeared in this place, spreading throughout the lake. In the evening, at the site of the death of a person, a light circle appeared, phosphorescent - a spot with a diameter of about five meters.

Two brave fishermen sailed on a boat to this place, and those watching from the shore suddenly saw how the whole boat was immediately illuminated with some kind of greenish light. This lasted for several seconds, and then a fountain about four meters high came out of the water. The fishermen immediately hurried to get out of the damn place so that, God forbid, they themselves would not drown.

Several cases have been recorded of those who swam in the lake falling ill with an unknown skin disease. Their bodies were covered with horny scales, their faces changed completely, and their hair fell out. In addition, long processes grew on the forehead, similar to horns, which later fell off by themselves. All this lasted for six months, then the disease slowly receded.

Divers conducting research on the bottom of the lake discovered several strange cracks in the ground, where water flows at great speed. In the middle of the lake there is a depression-well. But no one has determined where it leads. Too deep.

Another deadly lake, Smerdyache, is located in the Shatursky district of the Moscow region. It is peaty, the water is reddish-brown, and in some places it even appears black. There is no fish in it, and Smerdyache has a bad reputation among local residents. As soon as you get close to him, your health immediately worsens, a feeling of discomfort and anxiety arises. People regularly drown in Smerdyachey, and it is not surprising that many try to avoid it. From a bird's eye view, the lake looks like a perfect circle with an earthen bank.

Assumptions about the cosmic origin of the lake were made back in the late 80s of the last century, but this version has only now been proven. Experts from the laboratory of cosmochemistry, having examined the mysterious lake, came to the conclusion that it is indeed a crater formed after the fall of a giant meteorite in the distant past.

The horror of the ancient temple.

80 kilometers from St. Petersburg, in the vicinity of the city of Sosnovy Bor, local residents can show you another dead lake - Kanlishchenskoye. The name of the lake probably comes from the Old Russian word “temple”, which meant the place where the ancient Rus made sacrifices to their gods. The forest surrounding the lake is full of small animals, birds and insects, but they prefer not to get close to the water. There are no fish in the lake, and scientists cannot explain this mysterious fact.

Local residents say that near the lake a person is seized by an inexplicable fear, and sometimes this happens to entire groups of people at the same time.

Occasionally, square holes with a cross-section of one square meter are found on the shore. And on clear nights you can see a slight glow over the lake. Experts explain this phenomenon by gases released from the bottom, although the glow is located a meter above the water.

The Yachenskoye reservoir, located in the Kaluga region, also has a bad reputation. Local residents nicknamed one of its sections the Thunder of the Lord and superstitiously avoid it. In early spring, this damned place is clearly visible, as if outlined by an invisible circle. The fact is that for several years in a row accidents have been regularly occurring here, and half of them were fatal. The cause is a sudden electric shock of great strength.

One of the last victims of the Lord’s Thunder was a Kaluga resident who, together with his family, came to relax at the Yachenskoye Reservoir at the beginning of last summer. As soon as the family settled down on the shore, there was a crackling noise, accompanied by a flash, and the clothes on the man immediately began to smoke and burst into flames. Trainers from a nearby sports base helped save the victim from imminent death. The man was taken to the hospital with severe burns affecting 50 percent of his body.

What is the mystical Thunder of the Lord? Local residents say that this is all due to ball lightning, which, like mosquitoes, circles over the same place in the reservoir. Ufologists add that the Thunder of God is associated with UFOs that regularly land in the nearby Kaluga Forest. And experts say that the fatal anomaly in the area of ​​the Yachensky reservoir occurs primarily due to man-made reasons. The fact is that a high-voltage line runs along the shore of the reservoir, the wires of which sag in places so much that they almost touch the water. And from time to time a favorable discharge environment is created, and a discharge from a power line strikes the unwary vacationer.

Poison from the periodic table.

Many bodies of water are associated with barbaric or ill-considered human activity, even approaching them within a kilometer is strictly not recommended. For example, the deadly lake, located in the town of Cherdyn, in the Perm region, has no name at all. Locals bypass it as the “tenth road”, and all because it is actually a trench filled with water, formed as a result of... three nuclear explosions!

In winter it is almost impossible to get to it - only on the winter road. The surrounding areas are desolate. The tests were carried out at a record minimum depth of only 270 meters, and the power of the explosions was twice that of the nuclear charge dropped on Hiroshima. The project was carried out under the code name Taiga” and marked the beginning of the “epoch-making” transfer of northern rivers to the south. Fortunately for nature and people, that’s where it all ended, leaving only crumpled metal structures protruding from the ground, heaps of cement and graphite turned to stone around the radioactive lake.

Karelian Lake Syurzi has also become “famous” recently. First, fish began to float up with their bellies in huge quantities. Then two fishermen died under mysterious circumstances, and another 15 were hospitalized with severe poisoning.

A few months later, another tragedy occurred. The fishermen had just settled on a small island in the middle of the lake when suddenly two of them lost consciousness.

It was something inexplicable,” one of the victims, a resident of the Leshukonsky district, Alexey Shitikov, later said. “It seemed to me that some terrible force was crawling from the sky, my arms and legs immediately became heavier, the earth disappeared from under my feet. My friend Venya completely fell. I threw myself into the water and swam to the shore, and began to call my father to help. But my father felt bad too. Venya died that night.

The Shitikovs were sent to the regional hospital, and the body of Veniamin Rodionov was taken to the regional forensic bureau. The relatives and friends of the deceased were explained that an unknown poison was discovered during a forensic chemical study.

No natural anomalies have been identified on Syurzi, the department said after a medical-ecological study of the composition of lake water. natural resources administration Arkhangelsk region. -The only thing that was found was a significant excess of fluorine content in the water.

However, fluorine is not some neutral element from the periodic table, and its danger should in no case be minimized. When it comes into contact with the skin, scientists believe, it causes severe burns, and inhaling it leads to severe inflammation of the airways and lungs, which can result in pulmonary edema and death. Penetrating into water and soil, fluorine can remain in them for many years and lead to the most unpleasant consequences for animals, plants and, naturally, people.

But how did fluoride end up in the lake? On this score, experts involved in accident investigations have only an assumption so far. Surzi is replete with springs and underwater rivers. So the poison could have entered the lake from Arkhangelsk or from the Komi Republic, where there are quite a lot of chemical industries. However, this is just a guess.

The unusual lake is located next to the Red Sea, on the Sinai Peninsula. It is separated from the sea itself by a thin strip of fossilized shell rock. The flora and fauna of this lake is very simple, but the temperature is quite surprising. In the upper layers, the water temperature is +16°C almost all year round, and at a depth of 6 meters or more it ranges from +48°C in winter to +60°C in summer. Therefore, all animals, fish and organisms live closer to the surface. In addition, the layers of water differ in the level of salt content. The salinity at the top is 42-43 ppm, and near the bottom this value is twice as high. On Earth, of course, there are other lakes with high temperature and salinity, but none of them have such an unusual vertical distribution of these parameters.

The warmest reservoir in the eternal frost zone is located in Antarctica; its ice thickness is 4 meters. This is Lake Vanda, where directly under the ice there is fresh water, and at depth it is already salty. Even in the coldest weather, when the air temperature reaches -50-70°C, the water maintains a temperature of no lower than +6°C, and at the bottom (at 70 meters depth) - +25-28°C, as if in some southern sea . The most amazing thing is that there are no hot springs at the bottom of this sea. This phenomenon appears to be due to the fact that Wanda is a giant thermos. His the purest water, in which there are no microorganisms, is heated by the penetration of the sun's rays through the thickness of the ice. The deepest layers of water are the warmest, which, due to their density and salinity, do not mix with the water that is located on the surface.

In the Republic of Ghana, in the tropical African forests, 30 km from the city of Kumasi, there is one of the most beautiful lakes - Bosumtwi. It is the most unpredictable body of water in all globe. The shape of Bosumtwi is presented as regular around, as if someone specially drew a circle here with a compass and dug a hole 400 meters deep and 7 km in diameter. The water in it is bluish in color, along the banks there are jungles, which often part, revealing entire clearings with small settlements. Several small mountain rivers flow into Bosumtwi, but not a single river originates from it. In this regard, the water level in the lake is constantly rising, thereby flooding the villages located on its shores. However, what shocks people more is that this lake is endowed with an explosive temper. As a rule, it is very calm, silent, but it can suddenly explode at any moment. In its depths, it’s as if a huge bubble of air is bursting, as a result of which a countless amount of water is thrown up, the surface of the lake begins to boil and rage. After this it calms down again.

As a result of these explosions, many fish die, which the indigenous people subsequently collect with nets. Researchers believe that the reason for these phenomena is that there are sediments at the bottom of the lake in which organic matter decomposes, accompanied by the release of gas. This gas accumulates to a certain limit, and then it explodes inside the water column.

For geographers, Lake Bosumtwi is mysterious and enigmatic. Some argue that it was formed as a result of a huge meteorite falling on our planet, while others think that it was an explosion of antimatter that did not leave behind any traces in the form of debris and fragments. The most plausible version is that Bosumtwi was formed as a result of volcanic activity. It is likely that the lake is located on the site of a destroyed volcanic cone that existed in the distant past.