The Aral Sea

In the 1960’s, the Aral Sea was the world’s fourth largest, inland sea. Now, this huge body of water has been reduced to about two-fifths its original size and continues to shrink daily. In April of 2004, I stood on what was once the bank of the Aral Sea. The feeling was of desolation, with nothing alive for hundreds of kilometers except the crickets and lizards. Huge skeletons of forgotten ships lay in what is spoken of as a ship graveyard. Sand beneath my feet, mixed with tiny shells was one of the only clues that there had once been a sea were I now trod. The wind, moaning around me, felt like a message of the sorrows that had occurred to the sea. How could a body of water so huge, so alive and teeming with fish disappear so quickly?