[00:04.28]Lesson 25 1 Dialogue
[00:10.06]Carl and Wang Bing are students.
[00:14.73]Wang Bing is reading a book about earthquakes.
[00:19.77]Carl,what does"quake"mean,as in the word "earthquake"?
[00:25.52]It means "to shake".So,in an earthquake,the earth shakes.
[00:31.97]And so do you,it you're afraid,and if the earthquake's a big one.
[00:38.14]Were you in San Francisco at teh time of the big earthquake in 1989?
[00:44.90]Sure I was.I'll never forget that.
[00:49.35]What was it like?
[00:52.19]Very strange.It was my first earthquake,you see,
[00:57.52]and I didn't know what was happening.First I heard a noise.
[01:03.29]A noise?
[01:05.85]Yes.It sounded like a train that was going under my house.
[01:11.60]What happened next?
[01:14.63]I was in the kitchen cooking something and I felt the floor move.
[01:20.56]And then I watched all the glasses that were on the table fall off onto the floor.
[01:27.04]Were you afraid?
[01:29.99]Yes,but not very.It was like being on a boat.
[01:35.56]The earth shook for quite a while.
[01:39.21]The house moved and a few pictures fell off the wall,but that was all.
[01:44.78]Lesson 26 Reading
[01:54.76]Read the passage to find the answer to this question:
[02:00.22]Which was the USA's worst earthquake?
[02:05.57]EARTHQUAKES(1)
[02:09.52] At 5:13 on the morning of April 18th,1906,
[02:16.07]the city of San Francisco was shaken by a terrible earthquake.
[02:21.71]A great part of the city was destroyed
[02:26.08]and a large number of buildings were burnt.
[02:30.31]The number of people who lost homes reached as many as 250,000.
[02:37.75]About 700 people died in the earthquake and the fires.
[02:43.21] Another earthquake shook San Francisco on October 17th,1989.
[02:50.48]It was America's second strongest earthquake and about 100 people were killed.
[02:57.42]It happened in the evening as people were travelling home.
[03:02.39]A wide and busy road which was built like a bribde over another road
[03:09.02]fell onto the one below.
[03:12.86]Many people were killed in their cars,
[03:16.94]but a few lucky ones were not hurt.
[03:21.30] Luckily the 1989 earthquake did not happen in teh centre of town
[03:28.25]but about 50 kilometres away.
[03:32.32]In one part of the town a great many buildings were destroyed.
[03:37.97]There buildings were over 50 years old,
[03:42.43]so they were not strong enough.
[03:45.96]There were a lot of fires all over the city.
[03:50.32]They electricity was cut off for several days too.
[03:55.28] Why do earthquakes happen?
[03:58.84]Scientists explain that the outside of the earth
[04:04.09]is made of a number of different plates.
[04:08.66]At San Francisco the Pacific plate which is moving towards the northwest
[04:15.92]meets the North American plate.
[04:19.76]The Pacific plate is moving very slowly--
[04:24.33]at 5.3 centimetres a year.
[04:28.70]Sometimes these two plates stop and do not move for years.
[04:34.94]Then suddenly,they jump and an earthquake is felt.
[04:41.18]As a result of the movement of these plates,
[04:45.62]west America near the sea has always been a bad place for earthquakes.
[04:52.47]When the 1906 earthquake happened,
[04:56.93]the Pacific plate jumped 5-6 metres to the north.
[05:02.86]Lesson 27
[05:11.72]1 Reading EARTHQUAKES(2)
[05:18.28] We cannot stop earthquakes,
[05:21.83]but we can do things to make sure they do not destroy whole cities.
[05:28.28]First,it is not a good idea to build houses along the lines
[05:34.92]where two of the earth's plates join together.
[05:39.04]Second,if you think there may be an earthquake,
[05:44.32]it is better to build houses on rock not on sand.
[05:49.88]Third,you must make the houses as strong as possible.
[05:55.34]Weak buildings will fall down in an earthquake,
[06:00.02]but strong ones may stay up.
[06:03.57] Scientists are afraid
[06:06.81]that one day an even bigger earthquake will hit the area around San Francisco.
[06:13.89]They call it "The Big One".
[06:17.84]However,people today are still building more houses.
[06:23.19]The population in and around San Francisco
[06:28.55]is now ten times more than it was in 1906.
[06:32.65]This means that if there is another big earthquake,
[06:37.69]a great many houses and building will be destroyed |