Its level has dropped by almost 52 meters in recent decades – now human remains are appearing again in the Lake Mead reservoir near Las Vegas. The series of finds began in May with a body found in a barrel.
View of a shipwreck on the dry bottom of Lake Mead
pop./(dpa) After an emergency call, parts of a human skeleton were found on a beach in the recreation area of Lake Mead reservoir on Saturday, the national park administration said. It is the fourth such case since May of this year. The corpses and other things from the bottom of the lake are visible because its level has dropped sharply as a result of drought and a sharp increase in water consumption in the region.
Police divers recovered the remains in the lake on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. The coroner is now trying to determine the cause of death. The skeletal remains of a human were discovered in the same area on July 25.
A white ring shows the dramatic fall in Lake Mead’s water level.
Lake Mead, which dams the Colorado River downstream of the Grand Canyon in Black Canyon, is one of the most important reservoirs in the United States and provides water for around 40 million people. With the ongoing severe drought in the west of the country, the Colorado River carries significantly less water than usual. As a result, the water levels in the reservoir have also fallen sharply. They are at their lowest level since the lake was dammed in 1937.
On May 1st, the first body turned up – in a barrel
The water level has dropped by almost 52 meters since 1983, local media reported. The lake is currently only filled to around 27 percent of its maximum capacity, citing satellite images from the space agency Nasa.
The first human remains in the reservoir were discovered on May 1: the body showed a gunshot wound and had been dumped in a barrel in the lake, believed to be between the mid-1970s and early 1980s.
A rusty barrel on the shore of Lake Mead
It was without a doubt a murder, the broadcaster CNN quoted an investigator as saying. According to the current status of the investigation, it is pure speculation that the mafia could have been involved, he emphasized.
More remains were found on May 7 and matched to a 23 to 37 year old individual. The other dead are probably people who drowned in the lake years ago, a spokeswoman for the national park administration told the broadcaster.
