The trawlers lie dozens of miles from what was once the fourth-largest inland sea in the world – the Aral Sea.
When the Soviet Union diverted the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers to supply water to cotton and rice fields in the 1960s, it transformed the Aral Sea into desert.
The waters that once supported the previously thriving fishing port of Moynaq completely dried out, leaving only sandy salt deposits and the abandoned fishing trawlers.
As cotton production boomed, the Soviet Union turned a blind eye to the problem. As the volume of water decreased, the concentration of salt increased, poisoning everything in the sea.
The Aral Sea now occupies 10 per cent of the area it did half a century ago. Agriculture has continued to drain it.
Four rusting ships on the dry bed of the sea were pictured by the QuickBird earth observation satellite.
An electronic music festival next Friday will be held in Uzbekistan to draw attention to the environmental disaster that caused the waters to recede.
The aim of the Stihia (Force of Nature) festival is to “raise global awareness about the desiccation of the Aral Sea and encourage its revitalisation and a more responsible and rational approach to using water in the region”.
Artists from Russia, Georgia and Uzbekistan will perform near Moynaq, the once bustling post.
“Hypnotic and harmonic sounds will be directed towards the lost sea, with the DJs echoing the rainmakers who were once part of the region’s nomadic tribes,” the organisers said.
In Kazakhstan there has been limited success in rejuvenating an area sometimes called the small or North Aral Sea, with the water depth reaching 100ft in some places.
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