When exploring the natural beauty of the world, you may find a breathtakingly beautiful lake, river, or waterfall, but taking an innocent dip can make you terribly sick or very simply send you to the grave.
Whenever we see water, we often can’t resist the urge to touch it, except for when it comes to deadly water, then you should better back off because you’ll likely come out dead, melt in the boiling waters, or rarely stay alive with severe injuries and health problems.
In other words, stay as far away as you can from these dangerous bodies of water!
10 deadliest bodies of water that planet Earth has to offer!
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#1 – Rio Tinto in Andalusia, Spain
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Rio Tinto is very dangerous for humans due to its deadly blend of heavy acid drain-off and metal mining byproducts.
This toxicity actually goes way back in time to 3000 BC, when the area surrounding the river has been mined for many valuable minerals (like silver, gold, and copper). In fact, these mineral deposits are what give the river its unique watercolor.
Extraordinarily, even though deadly, Rio Tinto is teeming with life, notably Extremophile anaerobic bacteria. The latter bacteria don’t require oxygen and can survive in harsh conditions.
Many astrobiologists believe that the strange bacteria come from another world, such as Mars and Europa (one of the moons orbiting Jupiter).
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#2 – Citarum River in West Java, Indonesia
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About 28 million individuals use the Citarum River as a water supply, they collect and boil it for drinking and cooking.
However, the river is home to various contaminants from both industrial and domestic sources, which frequently dump their waste into the water. The result was creating one of the world’s most polluted rivers.
Sadly, people who earned a living from fishing had to find another career, as the river contained less fish and more plastic, wood, and rubber waste.
Fortunately, a 4-billion-dollar 15-year rehabilitation project was launched in 2011 to save the river as well as those who depend on it.
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#3 – Boiling Lake in Dominica
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Dominica Boiling Lake is the second-largest and hottest natural spring on the globe.
In fact, no human has dared to get a bit further than the lake’s edges to measure the temperatures, which reach up to 197 °F (92 °C). So imagine how burning the center of the lake could be!
The strange thing about this boiling lake is that the water level drops remarkably at times only to rapidly refill again! This happens as a result of the volcanic pockets in the area.
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#4 – The Blue Lagoon in Derbyshire, United Kingdom
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No swimming!
First of all, the Blue Lagoon is not actually a lagoon but a quarry, which is originally known as Far Hill Quarry and been flooded since closing.
Surprisingly, the beautiful blue color of this lagoon isn’t natural but rather comes from the toxic chemicals found in rocks, giving the water its pH level of 11.3! This is really bad, for instance, the pH level of bleach is 12.6.
Moreover, the water is loaded with excrement, garbage, and even dead animals. Taking a dip in here is like swimming in a mixture of ammonia and dirt, so you’d better enjoy the Blue Lagoon’s water from far away.
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#5 – Horseshoe Lake in California, USA
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When you hear the word California, what comes to your mind is the warm sunlight and surfing, but it’s also known for its poisonous lakes, such as the Horseshoe Lake in the Mammoth Lakes area of Mono County.
This lake contains high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide. The latter toxic blend caused the death of 170 acres of trees and killed humans as well. The deadly poisonous air took the life of a healthy hiker in 1998 as well as 3 ski patrollers in 2006.
The next US lake is another good example why you should admire the lakes from as far away as you can while in California.
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#6 – Mono Lake in California, USA
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Again in California, we find one of the oldest and deadliest lakes in the United States! Since the Mono Lake has no outlet, it accumulated huge amounts of salt deposits, making its water x3 times salty as the ocean, with 10 pH level.
Actually, the tufa columns you see in the picture are a natural result of the incredible amount of salt. Although those columns look beautiful, they’ve only made the lake a lot more dangerous.
Unsurprisingly, only a few creatures can live in such super salty water, including flies and Brine shrimp. Birds and other animals would die so soon after taking a sip. And visitors only have to take a look at the remarkable number of dead birds around the lake to know it shouldn’t be touched.
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#7 – Lake Kivu, Africa
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This lake is situated between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It looks so pretty yet, like other lakes on this list, can be so deadly.
In fact, the water in Lake Kivu is loaded with carbon dioxide and methane gas which are, thankfully, trapped beneath it. If the gasses were ever released, the life of many people will be at stake. This is basically a ticking bomb.
Surprisingly, not only the gases that make this lake dangerous but also the location of the lake itself! The lake is surrounded by several volcanoes that can burst anytime and make the whole region disappear forever.
But there’s a bright side to this terrifying story, the methane deposit can actually solve energy issues in Rwanda, and of course, it needs to be extracted properly to avoid explosions.
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#8 – Lake Karachay in Russia
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The Russian Karachay Lake is one of the most polluted and deadliest places on the globe. It is locally known to have radioactive water due to nuclear contamination.
The lake contains residue of plutonium along with other chemicals (Strontium-90 and Cesium-137), and what made things even worse are both the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the 1957 Kyshtym nuclear containment disaster.
What’s more, this lake can easily kill you! Just standing there for almost 1 hour can hit you with a deadly radiation dose. This place is to be completely avoided unless you’re planning to spend your vacation in the afterlife.
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