Lake Chagan

Lake Chagan (Kazakh: Шаған, Shaǵan), or Lake Balapan, is a lake in Kazakhstan created by the Chagan nuclear test on January 15, 1965, which was conducted as part of the Soviet Union's Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. A 140 kiloton device was placed in a 178-metre-deep (584 ft) hole in the dry bed of the Chagan River. The blast created a crater 400 m (1,300 ft) across and 100 m (330 ft) deep with a lip height of 20 to 38 m (66 to 125 ft); it is often referred to as "Atomic Lake".

For the lake in Jilin, China, see Chagan Lake (China).

Lake Chagan
Coordinates49°56′7″N 79°0′30″E
Basin countriesKazakhstan
Water volume10,000,000 m3 (8,100 acre⋅ft)[1]

The lake's water comes from the Chagan River, a tributary of the Irtysh River. The crater lake's volume is approximately 10 million m3 (350 million cu ft).[1] To the south, the rim of the crater holds back the waters of a second reservoir.

Media

In Netflix's documentary series Dark Tourist (season 1 episode 4, "The Stans"), David Farrier visits and swims in Lake Chagan during his tour of Kazakhstan.

See also

References
  • "On the Soviet program for peaceful uses of nuclear weapons" (PDF). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. September 1, 2000. Archived from the original (pdf) on 2016-12-23.
  • "On the Soviet nuclear program". Nuclear Weapon Archive.
  1. Ayunov, D. E.; et al. (July 2017). "Present thermal regime of Lake Atomic (Semipalatinsk test site)". Russian Geology and Geophysics. 58 (7): 864–867. doi:10.1016/j.rgg.2017.06.009.


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