Tajikistan's Sword of Damocles

I read this - again from the Loney Planet guide to Central Asia - a few weeks back when we were still maybe going to drive the Pamir Highway. I filed  it away for later, and I think we're now far enough away to share it with you without tempting fate.

"As if Tajikistan didn't have enough to worry about, geologists warn that the country faces a potential natural disaster of biblical proportions. The watery sword of Damocles lies high in the Pamir in the shape of Lake Sarez, a body of water half the size of Lake Geneva, which was formed in 1911 when an earthquake dislodged an entire mountainside into the path of the Murgab River. The 500m deep lake formed behind a 60m high natural dam of rocks and mud. If this plug were to break, as some experts think it could, a huge wall of water would sweep down the mountain valleys, wiping away villages, even into Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, with flood waters reaching as far as the Aral Sea. Experts warn that it would be the largest flood ever witnessed by human eyes."

Cheery stuff, huh?

N