The historic drought in the American West has its share of surprises: a skeleton dating back to the 1980s has been found in a metal drum on the dry shore of a man-made lake near Las Vegas, and other macabre discoveries could follow, warns the police.
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It is in Lake Mead, the largest water reservoir in the United States whose level has considerably decreased under the effect of a chronic drought, that the body was found Sunday by boaters, in a rusty can prisoner mud.
Based on personal effects found in the cask with the body, Las Vegas police believe that it is a person killed in the 1980s. Neither the causes of death nor the nature of the objects n were revealed by the investigators, who have yet to identify the victim.
"This is coming across as a very tough case
," Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Spencer told the 8newsnow.com news site.
“I would say that there is a very high chance that we will discover new human remains as the water level goes down
,” he warned.
The western United States has been in the grip of a historic drought for several years which threatens the water supply of a large part of the population and has caused the level of lakes and rivers to drop dramatically.
Fed by the Colorado River, Lake Mead, a gigantic reservoir attached to the Hoover Dam, has thus reached its lowest level since 1937.
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According to a study published in 2020 by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the flow of the Colorado has dropped by an average of 20% over the past century, and at least half of this drop can be attributed to rising temperatures in the region. area.
Due to greenhouse gases generated by human activities, mainly fossil fuels, the planet has already warmed around 1.1°C since the pre-industrial era.
Most of this warming has occurred in the past 50 years.
