Explained: Why people of a Kazakhstan village slept for days
In Kalachi, a village located 230 miles northwest of the Kazakhstan capital, a strange incident recently occurred when around 160 residents slept for weeks at a stretch. This is why the village has been famously named as the “Sleepy Hollow” village. These villagers have long been seeking attention of researchers around the world, but this current incident brought them directly on the radar of the international scientists’ community.
When was this occurrence first noticed?
In 2010, in the month of April, Lyubov Belkova, a worker at the Kalachi’s local market showed first signs of this ailment when she felt drowsy and had a blackout in the middle of work and woke up almost 4 days later and was informed by the doctors that she had suffered a stroke. Few days later, five more people experienced the same thing, including a kid.
By late 2012, 140 of 810 residents of Kalachi had mysteriously fallen asleep in the middle of work and even on road while driving. They were complaining of dizziness during fishing (major occupation in the village), while cooking and even at the wheel, making it risky and confusing to carry on with their normal lives. This continued for the next 3 years giving it almost an epidemic proportion. However, in October 2015, this unique phenomenon disappeared as suddenly as it had occurred, until recently.
What was the cause?
The village of Kalachi is close to uranium mines. Hence, after extensive research, scientists have concluded that the poisonous emission of gas created from uranium is the probable cause behind people’s oversleeping in this village. This poisonous gas has also got mixed in the water making the effects far more severe. Traces of carbon monoxide have also been found in the air and water that is said to be infused with hydrocarbon particles, that has so far been the most convincing cause of this mysterious ailment.
This took so long to come to the forefront because initially the scientists didn’t realize that these components were getting mixed together under certain atmospheric conditions. They thought that they were present separately and hence didn’t produce any abnormal results. But lately, they have discovered that this phenomenon arises only when carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon combine with a little amount of oxygen, making the air impossible to stay awake in.
A Russian scientist, on the other hand, had stated in his thesis that this mysterious occurrence was a result of radon gas poisoning, that is produced when uranium mixes with groundwater in the mines.
Symptoms associated with the mysterious phenomenon
People not only sleep for several days in Kalachi, they do not remember when and how they fell asleep, once they wake up. They also suffer from partial memory loss after waking up, have extreme hallucinations, and complain of nausea and euphoria both before and after the long sleep.