Sarez Lake (russian: Сарезское озеро; tg, Сарез кӯл, Sarez Kūl) is a lake in Rushon District of Gorno-Badakhshan province,

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

. 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 An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

, 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 A landslide dam or barrier lake is the natural damming of a river by some kind of landslide, such as a debris flow, rock avalanche or volcanic eruption. If the damming landslide is caused by an earthquake, it may also be called a quake lake. Some ...

formed by the earthquake, known as the

Usoi Dam The Usoi Dam is a natural landslide dam along the Murghab River in Tajikistan. At high, it is the tallest dam in the world, either natural or man-made. The dam was created on February 18, 1911, when the 7.4- Ms Sarez earthquake caused a massive ...

, is unstable given local

seismicity Seismicity is a measure encompassing earthquake occurrences, mechanisms, and magnitude at a given geographical location. As such, it summarizes a region's seismic activity. The term was coined by Beno Gutenberg and Charles Francis Richter in 19 ...

, 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