A video has been published on social networks, which allegedly shows the shallowing of Balkhash. The author of the video also showed the littered shore of the lake, the correspondent reports Tengrinews.kz.
“According to scientists, the lake has existed for over 35 thousand years. But now, due to the irrational use of water by Kazakhstan and China, it is rapidly becoming shallow. (…) It will probably suffer the same fate as the Aral Sea,” the description of the post says.
People in the comments share the author’s concerns.
“The main thing is that the fate of the Aral Sea does not repeat itself”, “This year we went to Balkhash, there really is less water in Shubartubek”, “This is very sad! Let as many people as possible and our government see your video”, – write the Kazakhs.
A Tengrinews.kz correspondent contacted the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation for an official comment. The department says that the water level in Balkhash has increased by 15 centimeters since the beginning of the year.
“If on January 1 the level was 159 centimeters, now the figure has reached 174 centimeters. I would like to note that this year a large volume of water has come through the transboundary Ili River. Thanks to this, it became possible to direct more than 2 cubic kilometers of water from the Kapshagai Reservoir to Lake Balkhash. The West Kazakhstan branch of Kazvodkhoz sent 30 million cubic meters of flood water that came from Russia to the Kamysh-Samara lakes of the region. We would like to note that no water has entered these lakes in the past 20 years. In addition, Kazvodkhoz specialists intend to direct flood water to the natural lakes of Yedilsor, Zhaltyrkol, Birkazan, Sorkol, Saltanat and other reservoirs that have faced drying up in recent years,” the press service of the department said in a comment.
2024-08-13 08:14:56