新西兰英语 797 Earthquakes shake Wellington
英语课
A number of earthquakes have shaken Wellington and the top of the South Island. The first big earthquake was 5.7 on the Richter scale 1, just after 9am on Friday morning. The centre was near a small town, Seddon, in the South Island about 50km across Cook Strait 2 to Wellington. There were a number of small shakes after that but last night, just after 5pm, a 6.5 earthquake, again centred in Seddon, shook parts of Wellington. It was 17km deep.
Seddon has a population of 500 people. The town has some damage and many worried people. Wellington has a population of 400,000 although many more people commute 3 into the city every weekday. Wellington also has some earthquake damage, mostly broken glass and parts of the sea wall fell into the harbour. A lot of this land was reclaimed 4 land and it is quite soft. The road and rail north are built on reclaimed land. Railways were closed this morning while lines, bridges and tunnels 5 were checked. Parts of the central city were also closed this morning until workers could be sure it was safe to come to work.
Scientists say that these earthquakes could continue ‘for some time’ but they don’t know if a bigger one is possible. Wellington is on a major fault line between the Australian and Pacific Plates.
Listen to March 13th 2011 to hear some earthquake facts or type ‘earthquake’ in the search box.
Vocabulary
?commute – travel some distance to work every day
?reclaimed land – man-made land from rock etc thrown in the sea
n.比例；程度；范围
- The scale of this map is an inch to a mile.这张地图的比例尺是一英寸代表一英里。
- He's in business on a small scale.他做的是小本生意。
n.海峡，困难；adj.困难的，窘迫的，狭窄的
- The sea narrows into a strait.海变窄形成海峡。
- The ship passed through the strait between two islands.船从两岛之间的海峡穿过。
vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通
- I spend much less time on my commute to work now.我现在工作的往返时间要节省好多。
- Most office workers commute from the suburbs.很多公司的职员都是从郊外来上班的。
adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救
- Many sufferers have been reclaimed from a dependence on alcohol. 许多嗜酒成癖的受害者已经被挽救过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- They reclaimed him from his evil ways. 他们把他从邪恶中挽救出来。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》