The mystery of the most ‘deadly island’ on Earth

The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest sea on Earth, but after the rivers that supplied it were diverted by the Soviet Union to irrigate cotton fields, its waters receded and today it is empty. other than a salty sandy soil where temperatures regularly top 60 degrees Celsius and signs of life are scarce to non-existent.

But do you know what’s worse than a salt-covered wasteland infested with anthrax and countless other strange diseases that the Soviets have experimented with for years. That’s what makes Vozrozhdeniya one of the deadliest places to die. the deadliest in the world.

Back when the Aral Sea was still a body of water, Vozrozhdeniya was an isolated enclave that the Soviets called Aralsk-7. It was so isolated that it was not even known to humans until the 19th century.

Not appearing on Soviet maps, its existence is a secret to most of the population, so the chances of it being discovered by Western intelligence are very small… It was the perfect place to try it out. Experiment with some of the most controversial biological weapons imaginable.

For many years, Aralsk-7 was part of a national biological weapons program and was used as a testing ground for anthrax, smallpox and even plague, as well as diseases like malaria, brucellosis and typhus, all of which seep into the sandy soil.

In 1971, a young scientist fell ill after her research ship passed through a land near the island. She was diagnosed with chickenpox despite being vaccinated against the disease, she ended up infecting 9 other people and 3 of them died.

A year later, the bodies of two missing fishermen are found adrift on their boat near the island. They appear to have died from the plague…

Stories of locals casting nets full of dead fish abound in the area around Vozrozhdeniya, and in May 1988, 50,000 gazelles grazing on a nearby steppe died in about an hour, because mysterious causes.

Its reputation is so well known that since the old island – now 10 times the size before and connected to the mainland was evacuated in the 1990s, only a handful of expeditions have been organized. .

The mystery of the biological terror that was once tested here made everyone nervous.

In 1988, the Soviet Union decided that playing with anthrax was a dangerous game, so about 100 to 200 tons of anthrax slurry were dumped in giant pits and forgotten.

Concerned that anthrax might fall into the hands of terrorists, the US sent experts to Vozrozhdeniya to do some tests and when they found traces of anthrax, millions of dollars were pledged for a cleaning activities.

Thousands of kilograms of powerful powdered bleach have been used for months by crew in protective gear.

Only the cleanup does not really end the Vozrozhdeniya threat. Experts say there is certainly still anthrax in and around the dumps, not to mention the burial pits of infected animals, each containing hundreds of dead bodies or unmarked graves of victims. This place still has a lot of great threats, a threat that must be avoided at all costs.