nab_080317_earthquake Lyrics

2
Earthquake hits Britain: the biggest tremor in 25 years
Read the text below and do the activity that follows.
On 27th February 2008, something very unusual happened in the UK; there
was a rather large earthquake.
It was the biggest earthquake in 25 years in the UK. There have been very
small tremors in the past but they pale into insignificance compared to this
one. It was felt in a large area across the country too, from as far north as
Edinburgh in Scotland to as far south as Plymouth on the south coast of
England. The epicentre of the earthquake was in a small town in
Lincolnshire, which is an area about two and a half to three hours north of
London by car. A magnitude of 5.2 was registered on the Richter scale.
There were lots of reports in the news from people who felt the earth move.
One man said, "We had loads of vibrating and wall shaking and stuff, noise
coming off the roof. I came outside - the chimney's on the floor!" A
collapsed chimney was the cause of what was probably the worst injury from
the earthquake; a man broke his pelvis when the chimney fell on him.
Another man who spoke to the BBC described the moment the earthquake
occurred, "Everything was shaking. As soon as it happened we all went
outside and saw everyone else down the street, coming out and just realised
it was an earthquake."
The huge rumble that was felt by a lot of people, surprisingly caused very
little structural damage to property.
Most British people would be surprised to learn that there are 200-300
earthquakes in Britain every year - but most of them are so small, they go
unnoticed. The magnitude of this earthquake is fairly small in comparison to
some other natural disasters that have made international news, but for the
people affected, it certainly came as quite a surprise.