NEWsnight - Waiting for the sea

One-off editorial

Driving on an empty seabed watching the odd camel walk past; flying a drone across the carcass of a ship; eating horse meat in a former fishing village kilometres away from the water’s edge. This was a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

The disappearance of the Aral Sea in Central Asia is one of the world's greatest man-made disasters. In Kazakhstan, with the help of the World Bank, more than $80million has been spent trying to save the most northern part of the sea but this has only benefited a few hundred people.

In this film, we spoke to people still living in deserted fishing ports, to see how their lives have changed, and to find out whether they believe that they'll ever see the sea again.

We produced an eight minute film for Newsnight, a three minute package for World TV, a package for Newsround and we produced the first Shorthand article on the BBC News website to get over 1 million hits in under 24 hours.

Directed, filmed and edited by Tom Hannen and Charlie Newland