Thirty swimmers from Israel and around the world swam across the Dead Sea on Tuesday to raise awareness of falling water levels in the world's lowest body of water. The 17 kilometer/10.6 mile trip between Israel and Jordan took them seven hours because of buoyancy problems caused by the sea's salinity.
The water level started to fall in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River, the sea's main source. With the decline measuring more than a meter a year, environmentalists have warned it could dry out by 2050. The lowering of the Dead Sea level has been accompanied by the opening of about 300 sinkholes in nearby land, according to Kol Yisrael government radio. This has contributed to the collapse of nearby roads.