[00:01.59]UNIT 3
[00:07.61]Lesson 12
[00:13.52]Exercise 1.2
[00:16.30]The Disappearing Sea
[00:18.87]The Aral Sea is a large lake in Central Asia.
[00:23.46]There are two large rivers
[00:25.45]that give water to the lake.
[00:27.98]Around 1960, farmers started to take water
[00:31.93]from the rivers to use it on their farms.
[00:35.32]This happened for a long time but nobody saw
[00:39.38]that there was a danger.
[00:41.54]Then, during the 1980s,
[00:44.44]very little water-or sometimes no waster at all
[00:49.16]-reached the Aral Sea.
[00:51.15]In 1988, the lake separated into
[00:54.87]the Large Aral Sea and the Small Aral Sea.
[00:59.00]Over the years a lot of the lake disappeared.
[01:02.66]But still the government did nothing.
[01:06.29]The Disappearing Towns
[01:08.99]The water became very salty
[01:11.96]and this was not good for plant and animal life
[01:15.81]Now the water of the Aral Sea is nolonger clear
[01:20.36]There are no more fish.
[01:22.96]Fishermen who worked on the lake
[01:25.88]cannot work any more.
[01:28.09]There were many towns at the side of the lake
[01:31.40]before 1960.
[01:33.55]Now these towns are many miles from the water.
[01:38.28]There isn't anything there--
[01:40.56]just old fishing boats lying on the sand.
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