Module 3　The Violence of Nature

　　地震是自然灾害之一。当发生地震时，房屋倒塌，铁路线损毁，火车出轨，最为严重的是人员伤亡。让我们阅读下文去了解有关地震的一些情况吧。

　　Some countries have a large number of earthquakes.Japan is one of them.Others do not have many; for example, there are few earthquakes in Britain.There is often a great noise during an earthquake.The ground shakes and houses fall down.Railway lines are broken.Trains run off the lines.Sometimes thousands of people are killed in different ways.About 60, 000 were killed in 1783 in South Italy.A terrible earthquake in 1883 killed 35，000 people in Indonesia.

　　Fires often follow earthquakes.The Tokyo earthquake of 1923 happened just before the middle of the day.People were cooking meals on their fires at that time.When the ground shook，the fires shook too.Hot materials were thrown onto different parts of the houses which were made of wood.Soon 134 fires were burning in the city.

　　Another terrible earthquake happened in India in 1896.The ground suddenly moved 0.45m to one side.Then it moved back again.It moved about 200 times a minute.Nearly all the buildings and trees fell down when that was happening.

　　1．terrible adj. 可怕的，危害极大的

　　2．material n. 材料，原料

　　1．Why did the Tokyo earthquake of 1923 cause much damage to people?

2．What was the most dangerous part of the India earthquake in 1896?