THE DEADLIEST NATURAL DISASTERS
Найсмертельніші природні катастрофи
Найсмертельніші природні катастрофи
Do the quiz.
1) If a country
doesn’t have rain for a very long period, we say it suffers from _____ . (floods / drought / earthquakes /
tornadoes)
2) When a disaster
occurs, people move to another area or country. What are these people called? (aid
/ workers / refugees / migrants / immigrants)
3) When a disaster
occurs, people describe the situation using some of the words below. Which word does NOT mean very important? (emergency
/ crisis / urgent situation / inconsequential)
4) What’s the
international request for
help used by
ship captains and airplane pilots if they are having
problems? (marchday / aprilday / mayday / juneday)
5) Which of the
following words would you NOT expect to hear in a report about a country
without food? (famine / scarcity / abundance / food shortage)
6) Which word does NOT fit the sentence? ‘In war many people die, but many
more are ___________ .’ (injured
/ wounded / killed / hurt)
Key: 1 drought; 2 Refugees; 3
inconsequential; 4 Mayday (from the French ‘m’aidez’ (help me); 5 abundance; 6
killed.
Watch this video and discuss it with other students.
Answer the questions.
1) What
have you seen?
2) Have
these videos impressed you? Why?
3) Which
impressed more or less?
4) Have
you heard about these disasters before?
5) How do
you think from what disasters (natural or manmade) more people died?
6) How do
you think maybe people are also guilty in natural disasters? Why? In what way?
Read the text.
THE DEADLIEST NATURAL DISASTERS
A natural
disaster is a disaster caused by nature, such as floods, volcanic eruptions,
earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, landslides, blizzards, droughts, hailstorms,
heat waves, hurricanes, tropical storms, typhoons, Ice Ages, tornadoes, and
wildfires.
Some disasters
are on the edge of natural and non-natural. Famines, the chronic lack of food,
are the deadliest natural disasters; they killed 70 million people during the
20th century alone, with 30 million dying during the famine of
1958—61 in China. In the former USSR there were several man-made famines that
killed millions, blamed on the collectivist policies of Stalin, the leader of
the country at that time.
The other form
of the deadliest natural disasters is epidemics — diseases affecting a very large
number of people. For example, the Spanish flu of 1918—1919, which killed 50
million — more than World War I, which had occurred just before
Historically,
volcanoes — mountains from which hot melted rock, gas, steam, and ash from
inside the earth sometimes burst — may have been the biggest type of natural
disaster. They are usually caused by the tectonic plates movement. Some
scientists believe that the eruption of Mt Toba in Indonesia over 73,000 years
ago may have killed off most of the human species, leaving behind only
1,000—10,000 breeding pairs. This phenomenon, called a population bottleneck,
has been confirmed through genetic analysis.
An avalanche is
any swift movement of snow, ice, mud, or rock down a mountain side or slope.
Avalanches, which are natural forms of erosion, can reach speed so f more than
200 miles per hour. They are triggered by such events as earthquake tremors,
human-made disturbances, or excessive rainfall.
Destruction from
avalanches results both from the avalanche wind (the air pushed ahead of the
mass) and from the actual impact of the avalanche material.
Match the parts of the word combinations; make up your own sentences using the word combinations.
1) volcanic a) rainfall
2) heat b) flu
3) tropical c)
waves
4) Spanish d)
tremors
5) earthquake e) storms
6) excessive f) eruptions
Match the disasters and their causes
1) famine A) tectonic plates
movement
2)
epidemics B) earthquake tremors, human-made
disturbances
3) volcano eruption C)
man-made
4) avalanches D) viruses
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