Fact #01

By Siddharth Jain

Lake Baikal in Russia is the largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake in the world. It roughly contains 20% of the world’s unfrozen surface fresh water. It is 636 km in length and 79 km in breadth, large enough to be called a sea. Its deepest point is 1642 m from surface i.e. five times the height of Eiffel Tower. It is almost the size of Kerala.

It is one of the clearest and purest water bodies. On a good day, you could see 40 meters into the lake and it is, therefore, a home to 1100 unique species of plants and animals found nowhere else.

It contains so much water that it would require almost 440 years to empty it if it is drained at the rate at which the Ganges discharges its water into the Bay of Bengal.