Aral Sea Ecological Disaster Causes Humanitarian Crisis

Written by Stephanie Kriner, Staff Writer, RedCross.org

April 10, 2002 —Scientists consider the drying up of the Aral Sea — once the world's fourth largest lake — one of the greatest ecological disasters of all time. Following three decades of harmful farming and irrigation practices to grow cotton during the Soviet era, the lake that former fishing and agricultural communities depended on for survival lost two-thirds of its volume. The result has been a domino effect of human suffering, brought on by malnutrition, thirst and disease.

The Aral Sea has left behind salt deposits. Photo courtesy of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

For years, the Soviet government drained water from rivers flowing into the Aral Sea to grow cotton in the Central Asian republics that surround it, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. The practice harmed both the land and the sea, and eventually the humans who depended on these resources.

Fish have all but disappeared from what remains of the lake, leaving thousands of people without a livelihood. In addition, the environmental degradation created a vast wasteland of glaring white sand that blows into agricultural fields, contaminating the earth and forcing farmers to compensate for declining output by putting more pesticides and fertilizers into the soil — poisoning it even more.

As a result, like the fishermen, many farmers now have no way of feeding their families because their lands have become so depleted of nutrients. Adding to farmers' struggles, the disappearing sea has caused the climate to change. The once gigantic body of water once buffered the cold winds that roared out of Siberia in the winter, while keeping summertime temperatures from growing too hot. Now, the area's climate is becoming more continental, with shorter, hotter summers and longer, colder winters that deliver little precipitation for the next harvest. The growing season has declined to 170 days, missing the 200 frost-free days needed to harvest cotton, once a dependable revenue base in the area.

Making matters even worse, people also have little access to drinking water. Chemical runoff from the farm fields has polluted the Aral Sea even more, making it unsafe for consumption by both humans and livestock.

The combination of toxins from the air and drinking water has added to the poor health of residents — already susceptible to disease because of malnutrition, said Timothy Cummings, an American Red Cross delegate working in the Aral Sea region.

"The Aral Sea environmental disaster, along with the economic and health care collapse of the countries of the former Soviet Union, has made people of this region especially vulnerable to essentially treatable (and highly curable) diseases such as TB," he said.

The area suffers from an unprecedented increase in rates of throat and lung cancers, kidney disease, hepatitis, asthma, bronchitis, gastro-intestinal ailments, infant mortality, birth defects, anemia and tuberculosis, according to local health experts. In all, more than 20 million people throughout the region suffer poor health as a result of the hazardous conditions surrounding the Aral Sea.

Food Relief Combats TB in Aral Sea

While scientists have flocked to the Aral Sea to study the unusual ecological tragedy, few relief organizations have addressed the humanitarian crisis. Three years ago, the American Red Cross came to the region to help.

TB patients and their families sign up for Red Cross/Red Crescent food aid.

Assessing the situation, the organization determined that TB ranks among the most contagious, prevalent, but also easily treated of all the ailments afflicting the region. Estimates for the rate of infection in the Aral Sea area range from 250 to 370 out of every 100,000 people, and experts consider it a major epidemic.

For the third year in a row, the Red Cross is working to improve the health of at least a portion of this distressed population. "Since good nutrition is an essential part of successful TB treatment, it was decided that food aid for TB patients would be an appropriate intervention. A lack of other humanitarian aid groups in the region has made the work of the American Red Cross there even more critical," Cummings said.

Some 102,000 TB patients and their families in the Aral Sea ecological disaster zone of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are now receiving wheat, flour, rice and vegetable oil, provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The aid is being distributed through a joint effort of the American Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.

However, food aid is not the only essential ingredient to halting the spread of TB in the region, Cummings said. "There is a lot of paranoia about catching the disease although people don't really understand how to avoid it," he said. "People who have TB are basically shunned from society."

The Red Cross plans to change some of these misconceptions by sending medical educators to teach TB sufferers about nutritional foods available locally and to show them how to combat the disease through their diets.

"It is hoped that by giving beneficiaries this knowledge, they will be greater empowered to take control of their disease management which will affect the overall TB rate in the region," Cummings said.