Lake Karachay

Lake Karachay, or Black Water Lake, is aptly named. The lake is in the Ural Mountains, Central Russia, and near a nuclear reactor site secretly built in the 1940s. The Russians used the lake for cooling water for the reactors, but when it turned out to be too small, they used it to store radioactive waste instead!

These days it is considered the most polluted area on earth in terms of radiation. In 1990 scientists estimated that just an hour’s exposure to the lake would be a serious life threat! It’s surely not the sort of place you’d want to be swimming in!