新西兰英语 797 Earthquakes shake Wellington

 　　A number of earthquakes have shaken Wellington and the top of the South Island. The first big earthquake was 5.7 on the Richter scale¹, just after 9am on Friday morning. The centre was near a small town, Seddon, in the South Island about 50km across Cook Strait² to Wellington. There were a number of small shakes after that but last night, just after 5pm, a 6.5 earthquake, again centred in Seddon, shook parts of Wellington. It was 17km deep.

　　Seddon has a population of 500 people. The town has some damage and many worried people. Wellington has a population of 400,000 although many more people commute³ into the city every weekday. Wellington also has some earthquake damage, mostly broken glass and parts of the sea wall fell into the harbour. A lot of this land was reclaimed⁴ land and it is quite soft. The road and rail north are built on reclaimed land. Railways were closed this morning while lines, bridges and tunnels⁵ were checked. Parts of the central city were also closed this morning until workers could be sure it was safe to come to work.

　　Scientists say that these earthquakes could continue ‘for some time’ but they don’t know if a bigger one is possible. Wellington is on a major fault line between the Australian and Pacific Plates.

　　Listen to March 13th 2011 to hear some earthquake facts or type ‘earthquake’ in the search box.

　　Vocabulary

　　?commute – travel some distance to work every day

　　?reclaimed land – man-made land from rock etc thrown in the sea

1 scale   

n.比例；程度；范围

参考例句：

• The scale of this map is an inch to a mile.这张地图的比例尺是一英寸代表一英里。
• He's in business on a small scale.他做的是小本生意。

2 strait   

n.海峡，困难；adj.困难的，窘迫的，狭窄的

参考例句：

• The sea narrows into a strait.海变窄形成海峡。
• The ship passed through the strait between two islands.船从两岛之间的海峡穿过。

3 commute   

vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通

参考例句：

• I spend much less time on my commute to work now.我现在工作的往返时间要节省好多。
• Most office workers commute from the suburbs.很多公司的职员都是从郊外来上班的。

4 reclaimed   

adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救

参考例句：

• Many sufferers have been reclaimed from a dependence on alcohol. 许多嗜酒成癖的受害者已经被挽救过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They reclaimed him from his evil ways. 他们把他从邪恶中挽救出来。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

5 tunnels   

隧道，地道( tunnel的名词复数 )； （动物栖息的）穴

参考例句：

• The badger sett had twelve entrances to what must have been a labyrinth of tunnels. 这个獾穴有12 个入口，下面必定有一套错综复杂的地道。
• Workers could not clear the tunnels of smoke. 工人们无法清除隧道里的烟雾。