The western region of the United States suffered a severe drought this year, causing the water level of Lake Mead, the main reservoir of the Colorado River, to drop sharply, endangering agricultural irrigation and the lives of residents What is shocking is that as the reservoir dries up day by day, many corpses hidden at the bottom of the lake gradually appear, which may reveal the truth of many murders
Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States. It is located at the junction of Arizona and Nevada. It is impounded by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. It is about 105 kilometers long, 15 kilometers wide and covers an area of more than 600 square kilometers. It supplies water to 25million people in Arizona, Nevada, California and some parts of Mexico. This reservoir is more than 40 kilometers away from Las Vegas, the "gambling city". However, there have long been rumors that the gambling city gangs fought fiercely and set off a bloodbath, including the saying that they dumped their bodies at the bottom of the lake after killing people.
Several media reported that with the recent sudden drop in the water level of Lake Mead, many human remains have emerged from the bottom of the lake. Some of them have died for more than decades, with obvious traces of murder. For example, a dead man with a gunshot wound was stuffed into a bucket and thrown into the bottom of the lake. The perpetrator obviously thought that the truth could sink to the bottom of the lake forever.
In some lake areas, the water level is too low to row, which has impacted the tourism industry. Due to the shrinking area of the lake, some so-called "lakeside restaurants" have basically lost sight of the lake scenery, and their attraction to tourists has decreased significantly.
However, some businesses have found another way: providing snorkeling equipment for tourists who have the desire to explore and solve cases to "search for more hidden corpses" in the lake in order to help the police solve more murders.
Video screenshot of the dead being stuffed into a bucket at the bottom of the lake
Experts warn that if the water level of Lake Mead continues to drop, the Hoover Dam will no longer be able to generate hydropower, and even the lower Colorado River will face no water.
NASA monitoring shows that the western region of the United States is suffering from one of the most serious droughts.
J. T. Rigg, a hydrological expert of NASA, said: "with climate change, the 'dominoes' began to fall in turn: the temperature rose, the rainfall and snowfall decreased, the reservoirs dried up gradually, and then forest fires occurred (frequently) in the western United States."
In the past few months, forest fires have occurred in many places in the western United States and have not yet been extinguished. Take New Mexico as an example. The largest forest fire in the history of the state has been raging for several months, with a burned area of about 1300 square kilometers, roughly equivalent to the area of the whole new york city.
75% of Lake Mead's water supply is used for agricultural irrigation. California, a major agricultural state in the United States, accounts for more than one-third of the country's vegetable production, and about two-thirds of the country's fruit and nut production. Due to drought and water shortage, a large number of agricultural land in California is idle.
Many wells in California have dried up, but farmers have no money to dig deeper wells. Charitable organizations regularly donate bottled water, but it is only enough for farmers' families to drink and wash, far from enough for agricultural irrigation. California has successively introduced a number of water-saving measures, including requiring residents to reduce shower time.
High temperature and drought hit the United States and fear large-scale power outage
The North American power reliability Corporation (NERC) warned in late May that the growth rate of solar and wind power generation in the United States could not keep up with the retirement rate of fossil energy power plants. In addition, the United States is facing extreme high temperature and dry weather this summer, which is expected to lead to large-scale power outages in many places, especially in the central and western regions. Mora, head of NERC's reliability assessment and performance analysis department, said that this summer the United States may encounter the most serious power shortage in nearly 30 years.
According to US media reports, on the one hand, high temperature will lead to a surge in power demand, on the other hand, it will increase the risk of accidents in traditional power plant equipment; Drought means that water levels are falling, hydropower efficiency is declining, and it is more difficult for nuclear, coal and natural gas power plants to obtain sufficient cooling water. In addition, high temperature is easy to cause mountain fires, and the smoke generated by mountain fires may affect the operation of solar panels.
NERC pointed out that the Midwest of the United States has the highest risk of power shortage, and the central independent system operator (MISO) responsible for local power allocation may not be able to meet its normal energy demand; Large scale blackouts are also likely to occur in Texas and the western region. Miso has reminded users to prepare for "temporary and controllable power failure". As the COVID-19 and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine push up energy prices, coupled with frequent extreme weather in recent years, power outages are becoming more and more common in many countries. In the past five years, the number of annual power outages in the United States has doubled. Since April this year, the power crisis in India has affected the whole country, and two-thirds of households said they had experienced sudden power cuts. Since the end of March, Sri Lanka, which has been in economic crisis, has been unable to supply electricity for more than half of the day.