Lena River No Longer Navigable; Summer Heat & Drought Mean Supply Problems Throughout Region

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In regional capital Yakutsk the water dropped so suddenly that hundreds of cargo ships and smaller boats were left stranded in the sand. Picture: Ruslan Ochirov



The current water level means critical delays in the summer ritual delivering vital supplies to Arctic settlements in Yakutia, Russia’s biggest region.

Most of its remote corners are only accessible via water, with the lives of thousands of people depending on this traffic flow - which has been halted for weeks due to the low level of the longest river flowing entirely within Russia.

In regional capital Yakutsk the water dropped so suddenly that hundreds of cargo ships and smaller boats were left stranded in the sand.

Elsewhere along the river fishermen complained about an extremely low catch, saying that for days they were coming back home with empty buckets. ‘However many times I tried fishing with spinning and net, I caught nothing. I am now having to buy fish at shops, and many of us anglers fear that fish will die out in such shallow water’, bemoaned local fishermen Alexander Chigmarev.








EDIT

https://www.siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/worlds-largest-permafrost-river-dries-to-a-record-low/