29 Most Toxic Places On Earth

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Dzerzhinsk, Russia

Source: http://www.cbrneportal.com/

During the Cold War, Dzerzhinsk was one of Russia’s primary manufacturers of chemical weapons. Today, the city is still an important center in Russia’s chemical industry, producing materials for synthetic textiles, plastics, and phosphate and nitrate fertilizers. However, the city’s chemical industry caused the improper disposal of tons of chemical waste into the groundwater, turning the water into sludge that contains fatal levels of dioxins and phenol, levels allegedly 17 million times higher than the safe limit. While a number of chemical factories are no longer in operation, the local groundwater has risen, and the rise in water level threatens to contaminate the local water supply, the Oka River, with arsenic, dioxins, lead, and mercury. Exposure to and ingestion of contaminated water led to a rise in premature deaths, and in 2003, the mortality rate exceeded the birth rate by 260%. The Guinness Book of World Records has identified Dzerzhinsk as the most chemically-polluted city in the world.