PRAVDA.Ru: Large lake completely disappears in Russian village overnight

PRAVDA.Ru ^ | May 20, 2005

[EnjoyingLife]

The landscape on the forest edge near the village looks like the water has gone under the ground from an unplugged gigantic bathtub

A large lake disappeared in Russia's Nizhni Novgorod region overnight. Residents of the village of Bolotnikovo discovered a huge trench instead of a million cubic meters of water on Thursday morning. No other lake appeared in the area.

There are only 300 meters between the lake and the village, Russian NTV channel reports. The landscape on the forest edge near the village looks like the water has gone under the ground from an unplugged gigantic bathtub. Village residents asked Russia's emergency services for help.

[EnjoyingLife]

Link: http://english.pravda.ru/accidents/21/97/385/15506_lake.html

Can this really happen?

[bannie]

Los Angeles did it to Owens Valley.

Yup.

[decal]

It was a Potemkin lake...

[ConPunk]

I doubt many know what the Potemkin reference means.

[Mo1]

All I could think of was - oh, my God," a local resident said. One of the men assumed that the USA had been involved in such an amazing natural phenomenon: "I think that America got us here," a man said.

Rolling Eyes

I suppose this is Bush's fault too?

[konaice]

Thats one big sink hole, and probably one hell of a flash flood in some unknown cave system.

[Jet Jaguar]

Fascinating.

[martin_fierro]

Large lake completely disappears in Russian village overnight

Because Russia sucks.

[Paleo Conservative]

There is no news in Pravda.

[weegee]

Neither is there in USA Ptooey, The NY and LA Slimes, Washingtoon Post, or SeeBS News. Pravda is in good company.

[GSlob]

"Can this really happen?" It must be a result of "an international Jewish-Masonic conspiracy", like everything else there. For a good measure, one could also throw in "the enemies of the people" and "intelligence services from an unnamed Western state".
On a more serious note, why even bother to cite "pravda"? Credibility-wise, it is a couple steps lower than supermarket tabloids proclaiming with bated breath that clintons are space aliens. For all we know, the tabloids might be right.

[de Buillion]

"Can this really happen? "

This DID happen once in Louisiana, IIRC had something to do with an underground salt mine, and possibly oil drilling activity.

[RandallFlagg]

Hey, Jet.

Doesn't this seem a bit familiar?

[texasflower]

Because Russia sucks.

LOL!

[Bullish]

I doubt many know what the Potemkin reference means.

I'm sure a lot of us here do. I sure do.

[Iwo Jima]

Of course. We were testing our super secret lake-sucker weapon.

Works, too. We'd suck up the Black Sea but we haven't decided where to put it. Maybe Nevada.

[decal]

"We'd suck up the Black Sea but we haven't decided where to put it. Maybe Nevada."

THAT'D be SO COOL! Beluga caviar for everyone staying at the Bellagio!

[Iwo Jima]

I'll tell the brass that you vote for Beluga for Bellagio.

Consider it done.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

From deeper into the story...

An official from a neighboring village, Alexander Kluyev, believes that the lake has flown into an underground river. "I think that the vault of a large underground cave came down and connected with a river there. We believe that there is a certain underground river flowing here in the area, and the water of the lake has gone under the ground," said he.

[flaglady47]

I doubt many know what the Potemkin reference means.
I'm sure a lot of us here do. I sure do.


Ok, for those that don't it means a faux lake. Of course one has to know what faux means.

[skr]

You know about the Deluxe Super-Secret Lake-Sucker-Upper, too?!

[Iwo Jima]

Sssshhh! Mum's the word.

Next test is to suck up one of the Great Lakes and put it in west Texas.

[Reform4Bush]

Ah, but you are only half right.

There is no news in Pravda, there is no truth in Novosti.

[Finalapproach29er]

Bush to Russia: "All your lake belong to us."

[Mad Dawg]

No one should have two lakes until everyone has one lake.

[PGalt]

Ping the global warming crowd!

[hershey]

Isn't this where the Russian woman took one look at the mud and said the US did it?

[Calvin Locke]

Posted a couple of times a couple of weeks ago:

Lake disappears, baffling villagers (America Steals Lake from Village)

Russian villagers baffled by missing lake

[RetSignman]

It is being reported that local residents seen a U.S. military cargo plane fly over the lake just prior to the lake being flushed underground. The plane dumped thousand of books which were described as religious in nature.

Newsweek is looking into the matter.

[Jimmy Valentine]

"There is no news in Pravda" and no truth in Isvestia!

[I still care]

Early in the morning on November 20, 1980, a small crew of people working for Texaco were drilling for oil in Lake Peigneur in Louisiana. The crew was a little surprised when the drill seized at the relatively shallow depth of 1,250 feet. Usually, trying to get the drill stem loose at this depth would not have been a problem, but something was amiss. The harder they tried, the more it caused the entire drilling rig to tilt.

There were a few ?popping? sounds beneath the rig, and the bewildered crew watched as the 40-ton drill seemed jump up and down a few feet. The worried workers untied their barges from the oilrig, abandoned it and headed toward the shore as they watched the $5 million rig disappear into a lake that was only supposed to be 11 feet deep.

Meanwhile Junius Gaddison, the master electrician for the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, was working at a depth of about 1,300 feet when he suddenly saw a muddy stream of water more than two-feet deep rushing toward him. He knew that something had gone terribly wrong and that everyone working in the mine was in immediate danger. Gaddison signaled the shift foreman and the lights of the mine soon flashed in a certain pattern that the workers all recognized as the signal to evacuate the mine as soon as possible.

Fuel drums being carried by the rushing water were banging together loudly. From a distance, it sounded like a faint popping.

The Texaco rig had punctured the roof of the salt mine. The freshwater of the lake not only rushed into the mine, but it dissolved the pillars of salt that acted as the mine?s support. This caused the land above the mine, the floor of Lake Peigneur, to cave in. The mineshafts, some as wide as a four-lane highway and as tall as 80-feet, began to flood at an alarming rate, and the hole in the mine?s ceiling grew larger and larger.

Above the mine, Leonce Viatur Jr. and his nephew happened to be fishing in Lake Peigneur when they noticed a giant oilrig disappear into the lake. In its place, a whirlpool formed and kept growing until it was a quarter of a mile wide. It seemed like nothing could escape its force.

Many acres of the popular tourist spot, Jefferson Island, including the trees, houses, vehicles and even the Rip Van Winkle Live Oak Gardens nature reserve were sucked into the maelstrom. The crews of several barges on the lake were abandoning their ships and jumping to shore as more and more boats seemed to disappear underneath the water. Many of those barges were not even in the lake to begin with, but since the lake water was draining into the salt mine, the boats in the canal that connected Lake Peigneur to the Gulf of Mexico were pulled in when the current suddenly changed direction. Even a tugboat running at full throttle was unable to escape the force of the whirlpool.

A huge waterfall, the largest ever to exist in the state, formed where the canal met the lake and a fire raged on when a natural gas well located beneath the oilrig was ruptured.

The people working in the third level of the mine at 1,300 feet were easily able to evacuate, but most of the miners were one level below at 1,500 feet. A maintenance foreman named Randy LaSalle had to drive to remote areas of the mine to pick up miners who had not seen the emergency evacuation signal. They rushed to the third level, but by the time they arrived, the corridors leading to the elevator were blocked by water. The workers used carts and diesel-powered vehicles to drive up to the 1,000 level. Although they knew that almost all of the 297 people employed at the mines were now instantly out of work, they were all able to escape safely to the surface. Three dogs were not as lucky, and they met their untimely deaths in the watery mine.

By a stroke of luck, the 14-foot aluminum boat that Viatur and his nephew occupied was not pulled in. The water underneath them apparently drained so quickly that their boat remained lodged in the mud. They were able to step out of their boat and walk safely through the mud to the shore.

(I got this from a leftist environmentalist website - cut out the parts where it said oil companies deserve what they get for the evils of drilling for fuel!)

[djf]

It's happened a couple of times, and is usually related to the geology.

There are ares of the world that have huge limestone deposits. Old ocean bottom, mainly calcium carbonate. It's called KARST.


These area tend to have lots of caves and fissures and general weirdness.

So this is like what happens if a sinkhole appears under water, and the water just drains away into the caves and cracks underground.

[ovrtaxt]

Of course one has to know what faux means.

My sister was bit by a genuine faux moose once.

[Shery]

Interesting. I don't remember reading or hearing about it, but then the news has rarely ever been 'the news', anyway!

[Uriah]

Thanks for pointing that out to us.

[Captain Rhino]

Let's do some math here.

Pravda (Russian for "truth") says the lake contained a million cubic meters of water.

To give the bloggers some idea of how much volume that much water is, lets assume that the lake is uniformly 100 meters wide (wider than a US football field is long) and 30 meters deep (over 90 feet deep). The length of our example lake is then approximately 334 meters (nearly 1100 feet) long!

That would be a pretty big hole. You would be able to put a modern aircraft carrier up to its flight deck inside. Since lakes are not uniformly deep or wide, the actual hole in the ground should be even larger.

I have yet to see a picture associated with this story (including the Pravda article pictures posted) depicting anything approaching this size.

Of course, this skepticism concerning the veracity of the facts in this story IN NO WAY absolves President Bush of his responsibility for having caused the problem!

[Old Professer]

That was manmade; this was what we call a sinkhole.

[Old Professer]

Google it up.

[EnjoyingLife]

Peaceful Lake Peigneur turned into maelstrom
http://www.lft.k12.la.us/chs/la_studies/ParishSeries/IberiaParish/LakePeigneur.htm

Drilling Disasters: The Vanishing Louisiana Lake
http://www.killthedrill.org/features/disasters_lakepeigneur.html

Karst Topography - Teacher's Guide and Paper Model
http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/docs/parks/cave/karst.html

[Allegra]

"We'd suck up the Black Sea but we haven't decided where to put it. Maybe Nevada."

THAT'D be SO COOL! Beluga caviar for everyone staying at the Bellagio!

Suck up the Caspian. That's where the real good caviar comes from.

[bannie]

That was manmade; this was what we call a sinkhole.

:) I know that, silly! I was being a sniping li'l wench (Ok, a "very-short-but-not-so-little" wench!)

[EnjoyingLife]

Perhaps the following articles can yield a few more precious details that will be helpful in this interesting mystery:

White Lake in Russia just disappears, pulled into underground channel
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.lake29may29,1,5548950.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.lake29may29,1,1393916,print.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

Lake Pulls a Disappearing Act in Russia
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-lake27may27,0,5483472.story?coll=la-home-headlines
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-lake27may27,0,3373752,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Timeout]

LOL!

[RichInOC]

I still say the lake is in the same place, and they all got drunk and turned around. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[WKUHilltopper]

Yeah, that's right Ivan...we stole your water! Nimrod-ski! Sheesh...

[EnjoyingLife]

Lets send in one of our best military teams to really find out the truth: K-Dog and the rest of CTU-55.4.3 (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1413072/posts/). And soon as they have the pictures, post them on FreeRepublic.com!

[texas booster]

There is a large area next to the city that may have been the lake. Link is here:

http://www.maplandia.com/russia/tverskaya-oblast/selizharovskiy-rayon/bolotnikovo/

[expatguy]

Anybody got Google Earth?

[Rb ver. 2.0]

"I was standing here when Michael Moore did a cannonball from the top of the hill. The wave knocked me down and when I regained my senses, I saw that all the water was gone"