2014高考英语复习人教新课标 book1 unit 4 earthquake.doc

A NIGHT THE EARTH DIDN’T SLEEP Strange things were in the countryside of northeast Hebei. For three days the water in the village wells rose and fell, rose and . Farmers noticed that the well walls had deep cracks in them. A gas came out of the cracks. In the farmyards, the chickens and even the pigs were too to eat. Mice ran out of the fields looking for places to hide. Fish jumped out of their bowls and . At about 3:00 am on July 28, 1976, some people saw bright lights in the sky. The sound of could be heard outside the city of Tangshan even when no planes were in the sky. In the city, the water pipes in some buildings cracked and . But the one million people of the city, who thought of these events, were asleep as usual that night.????????At 3:42 am everything began to shake. It seemed as the world was at an end! Eleven kilometres directly below the city the earthquake of the 20th century had begun. It was felt in Beijing, which is more than two hundred kilometres away. One-third of the felt it. A huge crack that was eight kilometres long and thirty metres wide cut across houses, roads and canals. Steam burst from holes in the ground. Hard hills of rock became of dirt. In fifteen terrible seconds a large city lay in . The suffering of the people was . Two-thirds of them died or were injured during the earthquake. Thousands of families were killed and many children were without parents. The number of people who were killed or injured reached more than 400,000.?????But how could the survivors it was natural? Everywhere they looked nearly every thing was destroyed. All of the citys hospitals, 75% of its factories and buildings and 90% of its homes were . Bricks covered the ground like red autumn leaves. No wind, however, could them away. Two dams fell and most of the bridges also or were not safe f