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Natural Disasters
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" Local road was washed away and damaged. The highway of national route 'Kyiv-Chop' was blocked because of mud sliding in Skole district in Lviv region. Railroad Lviv-Uzhhorod was blocked because of fall of the tree.
" A private dwelling house was destroyed because of sliding in Ivano-Frankivsk region. The master of the house, born in 1965, died. 963 houses were underflooded by flood water."
" On July, 24 in the evening 27-year-old resident of Vyzhnytsya district died in the basement that was flooded as a result of bad weather in Bukovyna."
These lines are from Ukrayinski Novynyreport about the naturaldisaster that occurred in Western Ukraine in July 2008. As a result of heavy showers the level of water had been raised in the rivers, and dwelling houses, farmlands and agricultural holdings were underflooded. Some crops were destroyed.
Natural disasters have begun to occur in Ukraine with increasing frequency. After dangerous floods in Zakarpattya storms and tornados have also come their way. Information about the number of people killed by lightning is more frequent in different parts of Ukraine. Until recently, we only heard of such disasters occurring on the other side of the Atlantic.
And what are the causes of natural disasters which are becoming more frequent in our country? Not waiting for the scientists’ explanations, people say this is our fault. During the last 50 years a great deal of forests in the Carpathians have been cut down. Deforestation has led to changes in local climate. That's why we have so much trouble with floods in this region. The scientists remind us that all elements and systems are interconnected in nature. Irresponsible attitude to it might lead to terrible results.
The conducted research work has confirmed the idea about not only natural but man-made causes of these floods.
What is a natural disaster? The definition is: it is the effect of a natural hazard that affects the environment and leads to financial, environmental and human losses. A natural hazard is a threat of a natural occurring event that will have a negative effect on people or the environment. Many natural hazards are interrelated. For example, earthquake can cause tsunami and drought that can lead directly to famine.
The costs of natural disasters — lost lives, destroyed homes, disrupted economies. But there is reason for hope. By understanding how and where these natural events occur, we can build and live safely on the Earth, and by providing real-time information about floods, earthquakes, and other hazards, we can respond effectively when disaster strikes. We should build stronger, safer communities that are resistant to natural disasters.
Choose the best answer:
1. What natural disaster did occur in Western Ukraine in 2008?
a) drought
b) earthquake
c) flood
2. What happened to the national route 'Kyiv-Chop' in 2008?
a) It was underflooded.
b) It was blocked with mud sliding.
c) It was ruined by volcano eruption.
3. What natural disasters are becoming more frequent in Ukraine?
a) floods and storms
b) floods and earthquakes
c) tsunamis and floods
4. What are the causes of frequent floods in Zakarpattya?
a) heavy showers
b) natural and man-made causes
c) deforestation
5. What is a natural disaster?
a) It is a natural hazard.
b) It is a weather event.
c) It is the effect of a natural hazard.
6. What is a natural hazard?
a) It is a threat of a natural event that might have negative effect.
b) It is a natural catastrophe.
c) It is a natural disaster.
7. What is the relationship between natural hazards?
a) They all result into natural disasters.
b) They are interrelated, one can lead to another.
c) They never influence each other.
8. What does “to respond to natural disasters effectively” mean?
a) It means we shouldn't pay any attention to difficulties.
b) It means that we must remember that all elements and systems are interconnected in nature.
c) It means we should learn more about disasters and build safer communities
with real-time information provided.
Exercise 6. Match the words with the appropriate definition:
| 1. drought 2. typhoon 3. volcano eruption 4. flood 5. tsunami 6. earthquake 7. tornado 8. famine 9. forest fire 10. a disaster 11. a frequency 12. a hazard 13. a threat 14. damage 15. to occur 16. to respond 17. to underflood 18. frequent 19. resistant 20. deforestation 21. disrupted 22. an avalanche 23. a heat wave 24. hailstorms | a) повінь b) голод c) ризик, небезпека d) відповідати, реагувати e) вирубування лісів f) гроза з градом g) посуха h) цунамі i) лісова пожежа j) загроза k) затоплювати l) підривати, руйнувати m) тайфун n) землетрус o) катастрофа p) збиток, шкода q) частий r) лавина s) виверження вулкану t) торнадо u) частота v) траплятися w) стійкий, міцний x) спека |
Exercise 7. Read the paragraphs (A-E) and refer them to the questions (1-5):
1. What are they?
2. Why do they happen?
3. Where do they happen?
4. How do they affect people?
5. What can people do?
A. Over the warm parts of oceans. Tornadoes are common in parts of the USA, Australia and Japan.
B. The water evaporates from the warm sea. This condenses in the atmosphere. More and more hot, wet air rises up. It becomes a strong wind.
C. Scientists can usually track hurricanes, but they cannot stop them.
D. Tropical storms with strong winds. They start at sea, and can travel a long distance. They have different names in different places: 'hurricanes' in the Atlantic Ocean, 'typhoons' in the Pacific Ocean, 'tropical cyclones' in the Indian Ocean and around Australasia. Tornadoes or whirlwinds, are similar, but begin over land.
E. They can affect ships, blow down houses, cause floods and disrupt traffic.
*Exercise 8. Answer two main questions (Read and translate pupils’ answers and say your own opinion):
1. Is the situation really dangerous?
2. What can we do to protect the nature and to save our planet?
P1. I want to tell you about water pollution. The situation is really gloomy and sometimes even hopeless. Rivers, lakes, seas, oceans cover more then 70% of our planet. Scientists say “man will die if oceans die”. Over 5 million tons of oil products pollute the ocean each year. About 2 million tons of these products come from cars. First the oil products go into atmosphere. From the atmosphere they go into oceans. Experts believe life in oceans will be destroyed within 25 years.
P2. Well, we see that water which is necessary for our life is polluted awfully. As for me, I want to focus to another problem – the problem of air pollution. Nobody and nothing on the Earth could live without air. People pollute the air all over the world. A great number of trees growing on the planet produce oxygen and clean the air. But vast forests are cut and burn in fire. Their disappearance upset the oxygen balance.
P3. We must keep in mind that not only the industry pollutes the nature. Every year each family create one ton of rubbish. A great number of dumps are all over the country. Just only some facts: it takes more than 2 years to decompose paper. Cans and tins destroy more than 90 years. Plastic packets decompose more than 200 years, glass – more than 1000 years.
**Exercise 10. Do the following tasks:
10.1. PLANET AT RISK: What’s at risk? Complete this table with your partner(s). Change partners and share what you wrote. Change again and share what you heard:
| What’s going wrong? | How can we reverse it? | |
| Oceans | ||
| Forests | ||
| Deserts | ||
| Animals | ||
| Weather | ||
| Rivers |
10. 2. THREATS: What are the biggest threats to our planet? Rank these and share your rankings with your partner. Change partners and share your rankings again:
| · Deforestation · Pollution · Nuclear war · Climate change | · Species extinction · Deadly viruses · Overpopulation · Globalization |
10.3. ECOSYSTEM: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘ecosystem’. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together put the words into different categories.
10.4. TRUE / FALSE: Read the headline. Guess if a-h below are true (T) or false (F):
| a. | A new United Nations report says loss of biodiversity costs economies. | T / F |
| b. | The report gives us tips on points to help nature. | T / F |
| c. | The report says all coral reefs have already died. | T / F |
| d. | The rate of biodiversity loss is 1, 000 times higher than ever before. | T / F |
| e. | Scientists are confident governments will tackle the damage. | T / F |
| f. | World leaders will adopt a new biodiversity framework in October. | T / F |
| g. | The report says more than 25% of corals might soon become extinct. | T / F |
| h. | The article predicts pollution will cause fish to start fighting each other. | T / F |
**Exercise 11. Read and translate the following quotations. Do you agree or disagree with them. Express your thoughts in written.
1) “Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard.” (Standing Bear)
2) “Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the wood and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books.” (George Washington Carver)
3) “Man is Nature’s sole mistake! ” (W.S. Gilbert)
4) “Nature is not a temple, but a workshop and man’s the workman in it” (I. Turgenev)
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