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Waste heaps in Belaruskali potash mining area

BelaPAN photographers snapped these beautiful shots near Salihorsk, a city some 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Minsk.

With its high waste heaps, this area, where Belaruskali mines for potash, looks like a landscape from another planet.

There is no tree or living being in sight. The photographers only saw a Red Admiral butterfly, which had probably been blown in by the wind.

More than half a million tons of waste has been piled up since potash mining started there some 50 years ago. Mining waste occupies more than 10 square kilometers (2,500 acres), with waste heaps being up to 400 feet high.

A salt rock that was picked up on one of the heaps had a radiation level of 124 microRoentgen per hour (µR/hr), whereas the typical exposure to normal background radiation for a human being is about 23 µR/hr.