Nature destroyed one of world greatest wonders

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The World Wildlife Fund confirms that a torrent has practically fully destroyed part of the Volcanoes of Kamchatka UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Valley of the Geysers. As the statement by the WWF says, the Valley of the Geysers was wiped off the face of the earth within three minutes. “The scale of what happened are striking, especially for those, who had seen this unique site before the recent changes. Everyone got used to the fact that usually such disasters are man-caused. Here, it is on the contrary, the nature destroyed its own treasure,” says the WWF. "This is tragic for humankind, in that we have lost one of the great natural wonders of the world, " says Laura Williams, director of the WWF-Russia Kamchatka-Bering Sea Program. “But for nature, this is only a blip in the history of the planet s evolution.”

Scientists cannot yet answer the question what caused the disaster. Probably, the glacier melted because of the untypically warm weather; an earthquake could have become the reason. But the conclusion is not consoling: the unique natural park can disappear from the earth’s face. A special commission is now working in the valley.

On June 3, a massive slide of boulders, gravel, snow and ice choked the Geyser River which runs through the world-famous Valley of the Geysers in Kamchatka s Kronotsky Nature Preserve. Within hours, most of the valleys geysers were submerged under waters that steadily rose behind the blockage. The Valley of Geysers is the key point of interest in Kamchatka. Thousands of tourists visited the preserve annually. The unique natural park was found in 1941. There over 200 geysers in the valley.