World’s largest permafrost river dries to a record low

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. 

This summer’s drought is the worst in more than 30 years, with local farms and villages staying dry, too, as they take irrigation water from the river. Pictures: Ruslan Ochirov, Yakutia24

It was this summer’s unusual heat that caused the record drought, said Moscow geographer Dr Natalia Frolova who visited Yakutia to observe dramatic changes to water level. 

‘The abnormal heat recorded in Eastern Siberia in July and August, combined with lack of precipitation caused extremely shallow waters’, said Frolova, head of Hydrology at Moscow State University. 

This summer’s drought is the worst in more than 30 years, with local farms and villages staying dry, too, as they take irrigation water from the river. 

This in turn might start a vicious circle of villages getting more affected by wildfires, and wildfires speeding a next cycle of draught.

‘I don’t remember the Lena River ever being so low,’ said a 53 year old native of Yakutsk. 

‘It wasn’t so bad even back in 1987 when water dropped to reveal a tail and body of an American bomber which crashed on one of the islands in 1943.' 

Lena River fleet cannot sail after abnormal heat causes 2.5 metre water level drop. Pictures: Ruslan Ochirov, Georgiy Andreev

The Lena is Russia’s largest Arctic river after the Yenisei, and the 11th longest in the world. 

Most of its catchment it underlined with permafrost, with 77 per cent of it continuous. 

Most of Yakutia's 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