Go ahead and type in the following coordinates into Google Maps:
33 23 45.56N, 44 29 11.97E
A strange red watery body appears in the city of Baghdad, Iraq. Is this the path to Hell? Among Christian descriptions Dante’s Inferno depicts the innermost (9th) circle of Hell as a frozen lake of blood and guilt.
Having spent quite a bit of time dealing with Iraq and Baghdad, it was revealed that it is simply -base.
This body of water is part of the Grand Canal on the northern outskirts of Baghdad, specially this canal is on the north-eastern border of the neighborhood known as Sadr City (sometimes referred to as Ath-Thawra, Revolution City, or Saddam City - its former name). This canal derives its water partly from the Tigris, which splits Baghdad north and south, and the Diyala River which comes from north of the capital. This canal shouldn't be puzzled with the Army Canal (also known as Qanat al-Jaysh).
Both of these bodies of water are heavily polluted, and one must be grateful for that in many areas of urban Iraq, sanitation is a major problem and has been for years. At the height of the insurgency, it was chiefly bad, as IEDs would rip open water pipes and sewage lines, which flowed into the streets and surrounding land. Insurgents also threatened or killed individuals or organizations that picked up garbage on the streets, as that was a preferred medium for hiding explosives.
Depending on when this Google Earth photo was taken, the amount of pollution in and surrounding those canal areas was extremely high, as it leftovers today for the most part. Below is a photo that was taken by a US Army photographer on May 11th 2006. The water behind the Soldiers is horribly polluted by residential and commercial dumping, resulting in water that had bright pink hue.
