Instances of serious consequences caused by human destruction of natural resources

Russian Black Storm

Starting in 1954, the former Soviet Union mobilized a large number of labor forces across the country to carry out military operations in parts of Kazakhstan, Siberia, the Urals, the Volga River and the North Caucasus. Large-scale immigration opened up a large amount of wasteland. Due to the abuse of land by the former Soviet Union in the process of land reclamation, the farming system was chaotic, there was a lack of protective forest belts, and at the same time it suffered from years of drought, resulting in severe wind erosion of the newly reclaimed land. Since 1960, these areas have been frequently hit by black storms, causing large areas of crops to be destroyed. A large amount of newly cultivated land has been reduced to barren sand dunes, and many newly cultivated wasteland had to be abandoned for farming.

In March and April 1960, newly reclaimed areas in the former Soviet Union were eroded by black storms twice. These two black storms swept across a vast area in the southern part of the Russian steppe, blowing up soil particles, seeds, even seedlings and large chunks of soil on the newly reclaimed wasteland. The black storm here is the strongest, so the disasters are the most serious.

The first black storm started on March 16th and lasted for a whole week before disappearing on the 23rd. The wind speed was extremely high at that time, reaching about 12-15 meters per second. In Kazakhstan and the Siberian steppes, the climate is very dry. Every spring and the turn of spring and summer, strong winds often blow here. Due to the large-scale land reclamation, the vegetation has been destroyed, and the soil surface of the newly reclaimed land has become very sparse. This time, the howling wind brought up a large amount of loose topsoil. In an instant, sand and stone dust flew into the sky, and the blue sky was covered by dim dust mist. Under the attack of this huge black storm, all the farmland of the farm that had been operating for many years was destroyed in a few days. Many farms failed to harvest anything, and even the seeds were not collected.

Misfortune never comes alone. In less than a month, the black madman came again. April's black storm was more severe than the one that occurred in March. Although the strongest storms were still in the Russian steppe, the damage was equally severe in other areas, and the damage was spread over a wider area. Over the countryside and cities in Ukraine, black dust turned the originally clean and clear sky into a hazy black mist. People walking on the street were flashlighting, cars were driving on the road with their headlights on, and thick sand and dust accumulated in homes and offices.

In the vast area of ????the western part of the former Soviet Union, even Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia, which are adjacent to the Soviet Union, are filled with dust and fog, like dark clouds. In Belarus and eastern Poland, sand and dust blocked the sun, making visibility so poor that buildings could not be seen for several meters. The strong wind carried dust and sand upwards, and the black dust formed black clouds on the top of the mountain. The cloud layer was 1,500-2,500 meters thick.

According to the statistics of the disaster later by the former Soviet authorities, the two black storms in 1960 affected more than 4 million hectares of spring crops in the reclaimed areas of the former Soviet Union. Large amounts of sand and soil blocked many irrigation canals and destroyed large tracts of crops and fields. The fertile topsoil of many cultivated lands was scraped away, and in some cases the thickness of the soil scraped away was 300-500 mm. It is estimated that the total amount of sand blown into the sky on 4 million hectares of cultivated land is about 960 million tons to 1.28 billion tons.

The Khakassia Steppe is the hardest-hit area. The black storm blew away all the topsoil of the 150,000 hectares of cultivated land here. The sand filled up a 150-kilometer-long irrigation network, and also filled up roads and highways. Gully.