Sarez Lake (russian: Сарезское озеро; tg, Сарез кӯл, Sarez Kūl) is a lake in

Rushon District tg, Ноҳияи Рӯшон , nickname = , motto = , image_skyline = , imagesize = , image_caption = , image_flag = , flag_size = , image_seal ...

Gorno-Badakhshan Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region,, abbr. / is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area, but only two perce ...

province, Tajikistan. Length about , depth few hundred meters, water surface elevation about above sea level and volume of water is more than . The mountains around rise more than above the lake level. The lake formed in 1911, after a great earthquake, when the

Murghab River The Marghab River (Persian/Pashto: مرغاب, ''Morqâb''), anciently the Margiana (Ancient Greek: Μαργιανή, ''Margianḗ''), is an long river in Central Asia. It rises in the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safīd Kūh'') in Ghor ...

was blocked by a big landslide. Scientists believe that the landslide dam formed by the earthquake, known as the Usoi Dam, is unstable given local seismicity, and that the terrain below the lake is in danger of catastrophic flood if the dam were to fail during a future earthquake. The Usoi Dam wall survived a localised 7.2 magnitude earthquake, the

2015 Tajikistan earthquake On December 7, 2015, an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the moment magnitude scale struck Tajikistan west of Murghab at 07:50 UTC at a depth of . The earthquake was also felt in neighboring Xinjiang in China, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kyrgyz ...

, on the 7th December 2015 with no visible signs of deterioration. Shadau Lake is a small water body southwest of the Usoi Dam and west of Sarez Lake.

Formation

The formation of Sarez Lake is described in the book by Middleton and Thomas:Robert Middleton and Huw Thomas, ''Tajikistan and the High Pamirs'', Odyssey, 2008, ,

References

External links

Map of the Usoi Dam - Sarez Lake, Scale 1:110'000NASA Earth Observatory photoSarez Risk Mitigation Project
{{Authority control Lakes of Tajikistan Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region Landslide-dammed lakes Landslides in Tajikistan Landslides in 1911