Mysterious Sleeping Hollow Case Of Kalachi, Kazakhstan

Sleepy hollow

A person suffering from the suspected medical illness known as sleeping sickness in Kalachi, Kazakhstan, may experience nausea, hallucinations, inebriated behaviour, confusion, and memory loss in addition to prolonged periods of sleep lasting days or weeks.

Reports over years

The illness also results in hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, and confusion in addition to excessive sleep. In addition to frequently experiencing hallucinations, illness victims would occasionally behave as though they were intoxicated and lose recall of their past experiences.

Reports over years

Only Kalachi and the neighbouring village of Krasnogorsk reported seeing the phenomena. About 150 people had been impacted by it by the time it was initially disclosed in March 2013. It seemed that the syndrome could not be spread. The illness struck all age groups before being extinct for a while and then resurfacing in 2015.

Symptoms

The illness also induces confusion, nausea, and vomiting in addition to excessive sleep. A common side effect of the illness was hallucinations, which caused victims to frequently act incoherently, lose memory of past experiences, and undergo memory loss.

Testimony of nurse

Those who were affected would always feel sleepy and would fall asleep during routine tasks. According to a local nurse, provided a statement: You wake them up, they can speak to you, reply to you, but as soon as you stop talking and ask what bothers them, they just want to sleep, sleep, sleep.

Cause - radon gas from mines

Radon gas from the mine may be the source of the symptoms, according to a statement made by professor Leonid Rikhvanov of the geo-ecology and geo-chemistry department at Tomsk Polytechnic University.

Cause - chemical contamination theory

After speaking with the local residents, an epidemiologist and specialists from Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, offered a different viewpoint, speculating that the illness was brought on by chemical poisoning of the groundwater source. Though no specific compounds were said to have been discovered, it was suspected that these chemicals had escaped from barrels which were being used for military use.

Cause - report by Kazakh officials

The cause, according to Kazakh officials, is related to elevated levels of carbon monoxide and other hydrocarbons caused by flooding of a nearby abandoned Soviet-era uranium mine. It was also revealed that the sleeping sickness in these areas was believed to be caused by a concentration of carbon monoxide and decreased oxygen level.