“Last night, there were 20 elephants on my farm,” John from Kenya said. “They ate all my crop (庄稼). What can I do?”

Elephants are cute animals, but they brought serious problems for the farmers near Mount Kenya National Park. The elephants often left the park, went into the farms near the park, and ate their crops. So farmers slept in their fields (田地). If elephants came, they drove them away. However, the next day, the farmers were too tired to do their work.

Then, someone thought of a better way. They built electric fences (电栅栏) to keep the elephants out. The farmers had more time for their work. However, these fences were expensive to build. So they had to give up building electronic fences.

“The elephant problem started when more people came to Mount Kenya and started new farms,” a scientist said. “The elephants had lived here for a very long time before people came. At some times of the year, elephants go from one place to another. They remember their old routes (路线), and they walk through anything that’s there—like a farm or even a house.”

Now the government has a plan. It wants the people around the park to start tourism. People around the world love elephants. When more and more elephant-lovers come to visit Mount Kenya National Park, those farmers can make money by serving them. The government hopes that this way, people and elephants will live together happily.

Have you ever heard of an avalanche (雪崩)? Avalanches are sudden natural disasters (灾害) where a lot of snow and ice slide (滑动) down the mountains.     16     In fact, snow from avalanche can move as fast as two hundred miles per hour. That is three times faster than a car on a highway.

    17     In the mountains like the Alps and the Himalayas, there are snow and ice all year round. After big storms, new snow puts more pressure on the snow that is already in the mountains. The pressure can make the old snow slide.

    18     Heavy snow moving down the mountains may pull other things along, such as trees and rocks. A powerful avalanche can damage (损坏) everything in its path.

Luckily, no one lives in the mountains where avalanches are easy to happen.     19    

Most people who may lose their lives in avalanches are ski lovers. They want to have fun in the mountains. They also want to stay safe.     20     Even though the experts can warn people of the risk, there are still some accidents each year. If you are a ski lover, remember to pay attention to experts’ warnings (警告).

What can people do when natural disasters (灾难) happen? Can we stop them? No, we can’t. The only thing we can do is to clean up after the disasters.

Last year I met Mr. Flood. It started raining and _______ raining almost a month: the water on the streets got higher and higher every day. We used _____ instead of cars. We lost lots of things, including our businesses, our jobs and our homes. Schools ________ and farms were destroyed. We ran out of food and clean water. In some places the water was higher than the buildings. I felt like we lived in a(n) _______ world.

Because of the flood, lots of ______ broke out. Some people died. The soil and other things made the water become very, very _______. That was in summer time, so though it was raining, the _______ was still high. The hot weather and dirty water made the air very bad. Hospitals didn’t have enough rooms for _____.

When the flood was over, I looked around my city. The word “______” can describe the situation. Everything was destroyed and lots of people were sick, but we were very strong, I think. We had to ____ our city, take care of the sick people, and start our schools again. I just hope that one day, people can stop the natural disasters whenever they happen. After all, people are very clever.