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World's deepest lake Baikal shrinking

Lake Baikal is currently at lowest water level in three decades

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Situated in south-east Siberia, the Lake Baikal is the oldest and deepest freshwater reserve in the world. Photo: View of lake Baikal and Port Baikal village

© ITAR-TASS/Yevgeny Yepanchintsev

Baikal contains 20% of the world's total unfrozen freshwater reserve. Photo: Tourists having break on Baikal's Olkhon island.

© ITAR-TASS/Yevgeny Yepanchintsev

Baikal is also thought to be the world's oldest lake at 25 million years. Photo: Helicopter view of lake Baikal

© ITAR-TASS/Vladimir Smirnov

The lake is home to more than 1700 species of plants and animals, most part of which can be found only there. Photo: Baikal seals, or nerpa are the only freshwater seal species and are endemic to lake Baikal

© ITAR-TASS/Pyotr Vrshansky

Olkhon is the largest island in lake Baikal with an area of 730 square kilometres. Photo: Peschanaya village on Baikal's Olkhon island

© ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Mordasov

The most important local species for fisheries is omul, an endemic whitefish. Photo: Famous smoked Omul fish caught in lake Baikal on sale in Bolshoi Goloustny village

© ITAR-TASS/Vladimir Smirnov

Baikal was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996

© ITAR-TASS/Yevgeny Yepanchintsev

Since then Baikal has been targeted for development as a tourism destination. Photo: Participants of Expedition Trophy winter motor rally during the stage on the lake Baikal. The rally runs 12500 km from the Kola Bay lighthouse, Murmansk in north-west Russia to Zolotoi Rog bay lighthouse, Vladivostok in Far Eastern Russia, and is the longest rally entirely within one country

© ITAR-TASS/Ruslan Shamukov

The lake is fed by more than 300 inflowing rivers and drained through a single one, Angara river. Photo: Lake Baikal and the embankment seen from Olkhon Island at the village of Listvyanka

© ITAR-TASS/Yevgeny Yepanchintsev

Baikal pulp and paper mill constructed directly on the lake's shoreline in sixties was largest source of pollution for the unique lake. It was shut down on December 25, 2013

© ITAR-TASS/Vladimir Sayapin

In 2014 for the first time over the past 60 years the water level in Baikal dropped by 40 centimeters to almost a critical level — 456.09 meters against 456 meters believed a critical point. Photo: Shuntae Cape on Baikal's Olkhon island

© ITAR-TASS/Yevgeny Yepanchintsev

Photo: Train running along the shore of lake Baikal between Baikal station and Slyudyanka town. This route is the part of Trans-Siberian Railway

© ITAR-TASS/Maxim Kashirin

In 2014 for the first time over the past 60 years the water level in the lake Baikal dropped by 40 centimeters to almost a critical level - 456.09 meters against 456 meters believed a critical point. On February 3rd the Russian government approved a resolution on an ecological monitoring of the lake's unique ecological system. Images of the world's deepest and oldest lake - in photo gallery by TASS

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