Lake Kaindy in Kazakhstan’s Tian Shan Mountains is a tranquil turquoise coloured body of water. The world has plenty of lovely looking turquoise lakes, but what makes this particular lake so amazing is the incongruous tree tops sticking through the water’s calm surface. It just doesn’t look quite right.

So what are the trees doing in there then? Well, in 1911, the region was hit by Kebin, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake which massively jazzed up the local geology and caused huge land slips. It killed 452 people and injured another 740. Over a thousand houses and four thousand yurts were destroyed by Kebin and the resulting landslides.

This massive displacement of earth also blocked off the ends of some valleys. Luckily for us, but unluckily for the forest, this caused a gradual build up of rain water and the production of a huge lake.

Lake Kaindy is situated in the mountains, more than 2000 feet above sea level which is no place to have a lake normally. This altitude means that the water is really bloody cold all year round which has helped to preserve the trees. Of course, being an unnatural lake it doesn’t have any fish in there to nibble at the trees either.

More than 100 years after the earthquake the trees under the surface still look fairly pristine, if a little creepy.

Under the water the spectacle is even more amazing though…

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