The turquoise water of a lake in Siberia is drawing Instagrammers in because it looks like a tropical paradise, but it’s far from it. The water doesn’t get its inviting color from nature, this “lake” is actually a man-made ash dump used by a local power plant for toxic byproducts from burned coal.
Government officials are warning tourists to stay away from the body of water, which is located near the Russian city of Novosibirsk, and has been nicknamed the “Novosibirsk Maldives” because the vivid blue water looks similar to the Maldives, an island vacation destination in the Indian Ocean. But this lake is potentially dangerous because the intense color is the result of a major dump from a coal plant and officials can’t seem to get people to stop coming.
The pond even has its own Instagram account, with more than 150 posts with visitors posing near the water or in some cases, actually in the water on stand-up paddle boards or pool floats. While the power plant, the Siberian Generating Company, claims the pond is “not technically poisonous,” they warn that visitors shouldn’t go swimming in that water.
Source:People