Hell and High Water

The last few years have been the worst period on record for environment disasters and experts are predicting far worse to come. Here is how to become a disaster statistic. Move to an area on the outskirts of a town near a tropical coast. Crowd together as more and more people arrive. Wait for the world to get a little warmer. One day, the land will turn to mud and the neighbourhood will begin to go downhill. Literally. And if the slope is steep enough, the landslide will accelerate to more than 200 miles an hour. Peter Walker, the member of international federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, has seen it all too often. “First, your house has been washed away. Second, the land that you farmed has disappeared. Third, the other bits of land you might have been able to farm are now useless.

In the last decade, floods, droughts, windstorms, earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions and forest fires have become increasingly common. There has been disastrous flooding in Asia, Africa, Central and South America and Oceania. Even prosperous Europe has suffered and large areas of France, Britain and Germany have all been under water. Storms have been getting worse everywhere too, with a growing number of hurricanes hitting the US and Central America. Drought has affected large areas of Sub-Saharan Africa for years and many other zones are becoming drier.

Task 1. Make a plan of the text (time for preparation - 1 min., for answering - 1 min.).

Task 2. Translate the 2nd paragraph of the text (time for preparation - 3 min., for answering - 1 min.).

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