Yerevan Lake ( (''Yerevanyan lich'')) is an artificial reservoir located in the capital of

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...

. It was formed between 1963 and 1966, to be opened in 1967.

1976 bus accident

On September 16, 1976

Shavarsh Karapetyan Shavarsh Vladimiri (Vladimirovich) Karapetyan (; born 19 May 1953) is a Soviet-Armenian former finswimmer. He was best known for saving the lives of 20 people in a 1976 incident in Yerevan. Biography Karapetyan was born on 19 May 1953, in Arme ...

training with his brother Kamo, also a finswimmer, by

running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion by which humans and other animals move quickly on foot. Running is a gait with an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is in contrast to walkin ...

alongside the reservoir, Karapetyan had just completed his usual distance of when he heard the sound of a crash and saw a sinking Yerevan trolleybus which had gone out of control and fallen from the

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aqua ...

wall. The trolleybus lay at the bottom of the reservoir some 25 meters (80 ft) off the shore at a depth of 10 meters (33 ft). Karapetyan swam to it and, under conditions of almost zero visibility due to the silt rising from the bottom, broke the back window with his legs. The trolleybus was crowded, it carried 92 passengers and Karapetyan knew he had little time, spending some 30 to 35 seconds for each person he saved. He saved 20 lives.The trolley-bus and Shavarsh Karapetyan
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References

Lakes of Armenia Geography of Yerevan {{Armenia-geo-stub