The Aral Sea, once the fourth largest inland sea in the world and home to hundreds of species of marine life, has shrunk to 25% of its territory. The sea, bordered by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is now surrounded by deserts where scorching winds carry polluted air - poisoning people, animals and plants.

The water of the Aral Sea can only be seen from planes some 100km away from the shores

The Amu Darya River - once considered the Mississippi of central Asia - is today a mere trickle

The fishing fleet of Muynak is rusting away on the dried-out seabed. Much of the water was diverted to irrigate cotton crops

Only joint action by central Asian governments can reverse the damage, local activists believe

Around 70% of women suffer from anaemia and the death rate in childbirth is high

The fishing industry employed 60,000 people in Muynak in the 1960s. Unemployment is at about 40% today.

Only the tins in the museum recall the past - all the canning factories have gone, the population has shrunk to 1,500.

In the last recorded year of 1957 the Aral provided 26,000 tonnes of fish - today a catch is rare

The small bazaar in Muynak has almost no fruit or vegetables and the people feel abandoned by the world

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.