Thawing of Arctic graves

RUSSIAN scientists are worried that deadly diseases Smallpox and Anthrax might be unlocked from the thawing of Arctic graves according to reports in The Sun UK. The outbreak of anthrax in the Yamal peninsula last year killed one child and more than 2,300 reindeer. Experts said that the anthrax infection is believed to have spread after thawing of reindeer graves, but now scientists warn the same process could release smallpox, a disease that has been eradicated in the world.

The Sun reports that thawing of Arctic graves is happening three times faster than usual in Siberia and Russian scientists are warning of the threat of smallpox from graves in the Arctic where permafrost is melting due to climate change.

Deputy director for research at the Institute of Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone in Yakutsk, Boris Kershengolts has given a warning; “during the 1890s, a major epidemic of smallpox occurred in a town near the Kolyma River in eastern Siberia, and up to 40 percent of the population died. Their bodies were quickly buried under the upper layer of permafrost soil. A little more than 100 years later, Kolyma’s flood waters have started eroding the banks.”

Deputy Director of the Permafrost Studies Institute, Mikhail Grigoriev, says “The rock and soil that forms the Yamal Peninsula contains much ice, melting may loosen the soil rather quickly, so the probability is high that old cattle graves may come to the surface.”

Deputy Chief of Russia’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, Viktor Maleyev warns that apart from anthrax and smallpox, there are many other dangers lurking in shallow Arctic graves which might be unlocked from the ice after centuries and the world must be prepared. “Their pathology has not been proved, we must continue to study them. I think climate change will bring us many surprises. We should be ready.”