The water retreated – up to 150km from the former southern port of Muynak – leaving hundreds of fishing boats apparently beached in the middle of a desert.It happened because the two great rivers died – or rather were murdered. Since April the level of the sea has risen by more than 3m, flooding over 800 sq km of dried-out seabed, and bringing hope to a part of the world bereft of it since Soviet engineers stole the waters in the 1960s.
The drying up of the Aral Sea – once the world’s fourth largest inland water body, covering an area the size of Belgium and the Netherlands combined – has long been one of the biggest man-made catastrophes in history, bringing poverty, disease and death to the 3.5 million people living around it You would never know it, however, by looking at an atlas. Just months after the completion of a dam to conserve its waters, the sea has largely recovered – confounding experts who said it was beyond rescue. Life is returning astonishingly quickly to the North Aral Sea in Central Asia, partially reversing one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters.

Fresh fish are on sale cheaply again in markets near the world’s most desiccated sea. Cold green water is creeping back towards dozens of long-abandoned harbours, and for the first time in a generation, fishermen are launching their boats where recently there were only waves of sand. Some 13 million people across the UK are affected by hosepipe bans.The Environment Agency urged the companies to enforce the orders immediately because gardens have benefited from the rains but groundwater resources have not improved.. Southern Water and Mid Kent Water have also been granted drought orders, but do not plan to use them after heavy spring rains.

Water fountains will be turned off and the re-filling of private swimming pools is banned.
The government order banning non-essential uses of water comes despite rainfall in the area being up 70 per cent on the May average. The order was issued by Sutton and East Surrey Water and affects 650,000 people. Hosepipes and sprinklers to water gardens, allotments, parks and golf courses are banned, buildings cannot be washed and automatically flushing cisterns are banned when premises are under-occupied. It is responsible for 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes, including four-fifths of the most severe shocks.. The first drought order to be imposed in England and Wales for 10 years came into force yesterday in anticipation of what the Environment Agency has warned could be “the worst drought in a century”.

The more celebrated of them is the “Ring of Fire” – or circum-Pacific belt – which runs right around the Pacific Rim from New Zealand, through Japan and San Francisco to Chile. It straddles both of the planet’s most active seismic belts, which between them account for 98 per cent of the greatest shocks. It is not surprising that Indonesia is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. These roadsides you can safely explore: many are sign-posted and contain rarities such as coralroot bittercress (West Sussex), Spanish catchfly (Cambs), lady orchid (Kent) and bastard toadflax (Lincs).AT THE ROADSIDE1 Yellow rattle (rhinanthus)2 Muntjac deer3 Wolf spider4 Common blue butterfly5 Ox-eye daisies6 Dormouse7 Pyramidal orchid8 Fox9 Bee orchid10 Badger11 Field poppy12 Red kite13 Spotted orchid14 Barn owl15 Hedgehog. The small mammal populations of mice, shrews and voles tempt so many kestrels to hover over verges that the bird is virtually an emblem of the road network.And, just to complete the happy picture, many counties managing minor roads have been running protected verge schemes. Rare plants that now flourish on road sides range from green-winged orchids (M40, Bucks) to Deptford pink (Devon and Worcester – two of only 13 sites in Britain), wild daffodils by the M50, and outbreaks of bee, pyramidal, early purple and common spotted orchid. Because of the salt spread on major roads in winter, seaside species also thrive, including Danish scurvy grass (ground-hugging plants whose whitish flowers border hard shoulders in April and May), lesser sea-spurrey, and buck’s-horn plantain and grass-leaved orache (both M5).There are water voles by the M26 and greater horseshoe bats by the A38.

Last year the HA planted its 50 millionth tree since the Second World War, and it has now put up 1,000 bat boxes and miles of badger fencing, as well as otter runs and ponds for great crested newts.The floral benefits, either by design or the unearthing of long-dormant seed, are widespread. Some verges are managed as traditional hay meadows, and newer ones planted with wild flower seeds, native shrubs like juniper, and valuable trees such as the black poplar. And, happily – since only rare, authorised feet are allowed – they are the least visited by humans, too.The Highways Agency now mends as much damage due to road building as it can, and takes care to provide varied habitats. Small wonder then, that Tony Sangwine, biodiversity and landscape adviser to the Highways Agency, describes these strips of land as “Britain’s least-known nature reserve”. They are also home to black hairstreak and white admiral butterflies, and mammals as varied as Daubenton’s bats and muntjac deer.The verges and banks of our major roads now contain 60 Sites of Special Scientific Interest, with another 200 bordering them. The grassland, scrub and woods beside our major roads total 27,000 hectares, an area the size of the Isle of Wight, and harbour rare plants such as the Deptford pink, green-winged orchid and yellow rattle.