Striking NASA images: Fourth-largest lake nearly dried up

Jolie Lee

USA TODAY Network

On the left, the Aral Sea is seen in 2000. On the right, the sea is seen in 2014. The images were taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

A lake that used to be the fourth-largest in the world is nearly completely dried up, according to recently released NASA images.

The side-by-side images of Central Asia's Aral Sea in 2000 and 2014 are striking.

Starting in the 1960s, the Soviet Union had started diverting water from the regions of Kazakhstan, Uzbekisan and Turkmenistan.

"Although irrigation made the desert bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea," according to NASA.

When the first image was taken, the Aral Sea had already only a fraction of what it was decades ago, NASA says.

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The lake's disappearance devastated fishing communities, and the remaining water became so polluted it was a public health hazard, according to the space agency.

Kazakhstan built a dam in 2005 between the northern and southern part of the lake as a "last-ditch effort" to save the Aral Sea.

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