Vocabulary Practice

1. torrent

2. epidemic

3. volcano

4. harm

5. accident

6. collapse

7. strike

8. landslide

9. tsunami

10. incident

a) a large destructive sea wave generated by an earthquake ar volcanic eruption.

b) to fall down or apart when the component parts cease to support one another.

c) violently rushing stream; a great downpour of raim or great flow of a fluid.

d) a mountain out of which hot melted rock, gas, steam, and ash sometimes burst through a hole called; a crater, coming up from inside the earth.

e) the slipping down from a hillside or cliff of masses of earth and rock

f) a disease which becomes widespread in a particular place at a particular time.

g) injury, hurt

h) to damage or destroy; to come suddenly and esp. violently

i) a mishap; a chance event commonly catastrophe, subbering or damage.

Droughts Tornadoes Earthquakes Heat waves Fires

Blizzards Hurricanes Whirlpools Landslides

Tsunamis Floods Hailstorms Ice storms Volcanic eruptions

Weather Disasters

Water Disasters

Land Movement Disasters

1. For more than a month now, parts of the Somerset Levels – low-lying plains in southwestern England where locals are accustomed to a certain amount of flooding - - have been underwater. Villages have became islands, residents have been cut off from each other, and farm fields are now at the bottom of shallow lakes. Many Somerset residents blame not only heavy rainfall, but the government’s failure to dredge rivers and mount a rapid response. Gathered here are recent images from the Somerset Levels, as they expect even more wet weather in the coming days.

2. MANILA, Feb. 16 (UPI) – Millions of people in the Philippines are still in need of urgent assistance 100 days after Typhoon Haiyan hit the island nation, the United Nations says.

“ The authorities, U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations, and the Filipino people should be commended for the pace of progress that we have seen in the first 100 days. But we cannot afford to be complacent “ said Luiza Carvalho, U. N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for the Philippines.

Carvalho commended the government of the Philippines for its response to the Nov. 8 storm that killed nearly 6,000 people and left 4.1 million others displaced. She also noted that the United Nations and its partners helped provide food, medicine, water and sanitation and hygiene assistance to those in need.

“ We distributed tents and tarpaulins so that 500, 000 families would have some from of a roof over their heads and implemented emergency employment programs that helped them get back on their feet and pumped money into local economies, “ she said, adding that while ensuring that farmers were able to go back to their fields in time to plant, the U.N. and partners also helped remove more than 500,000 cubic meters of debris from hard-hit Talcoban alone.

2. Well, that didn’t take long. Two days into the new year, having barely had time to celebrate that we survived 2012 despite the apocalyptic predictions, we are being introduced to the new Thing to Be Feared for 2013: Iceland. And not by some crackpot reality show; by PBS. No, Iceland is not, as far as we know, working to develop nuclear or biological weapons. Apparently it could blow up at any second because it is full of volcanoes with a history of doing so.

In consecutive hours on Wednesday night, an installment of “ Nova” and then premier episode of a six-part series called “ Life on Fire” make clear that Iceland is a seething caldron on the verge of going kablooey , and that Icelanders aren’t the only people who should be worried about this.

2. The earthquake that generated the great Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 is estimated to have released the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey ( USGS).

Giant forces that had been building up deep in the Earth for hundreds of years were released suddenly on December 26, shaking the ground violently and unleashing a series of killer waves that sped across the Indian Ocean at the speed of a jet airliner. By the end of the day more than 150,000 people were dead or missing and millions more were homeless in 11 countries, making it perhaps the most destructive tsunami in history. The epicenter of the 9.0 magnitude quake was under the Indian Ocean near the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to the USGS, which monitors earthquakes worldwide. The violent movement of sections of the Earth’s crust, known as tectonic plates, displaced an enormous amount of water, sending powerful shock waves in every direction.