The Aral Sea

In 2009 in Kazakhstan, a group of fishermen ______ on a Sunday afternoon. They were on the beach of the North Aral Sea.

They ___ food.

They did some sports. Afterwards, they ____ stories and ____ songs about the Aral Sea and fishing. It was a good party.

The fishermen ____ happy because there were fish in the water. For many years, there ____ many fish. At one time, the Aral Sea in Central Asia was the fourth largest lake in the world.

It ___ an area of 67,300 square kilometres. Two of the biggest rivers in Central Asia, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, ____ into the Aral Sea. But the water almost disappeared.

The Aral Sea was a busy place. Almost 20 percent of the Soviet Union’s fish ____ from here. 40,000 people lived and ______ near the lake.

Then people ____ the water in the two rivers for agriculture, so the water _____ ______ at the Aral Sea. Also, it didn’t rain for many years.

Then, in ____, the Kazakh government and the World Bank built a dam. The dam separated the north and _____ parts of the sea. Then the _____ part of the Aral Sea started to fill with water again.

Philip Micklin is a scientist. He studies the Aral Sea. In ____ he said ‘Nature can come back.’ But in ____, he saw satellite pictures of the east part of the Aral Sea. It was completely dry. 

In June ____ a scientist from Uzbekistan, Yusup Kamalov, and a National Geographic reporter visited the Aral Sea. They found a huge ______.