Life isn’t always a bowl of cherries! Disasters happen in the world, and today we’re going to help you talk about them in English in this episode.
An email from Veronica from Mexico
This is Veronica Morfin. It is nice to get to listen (to) your podcast. I don’t dare to record a voice message now, but eventually I’ll do it.
Anyway, One week ago, I came across your podcast when I was desperately looking for something to help me to improve my listening skills. I did the CAE exam and I failed the listening section.
So, here I am happily listening (to) your humorous way. That’s fantastic.
Please, say hi to Reza and to all your podcast listeners from Mexico.
Voice message from Veronica from Mazatlan, Mexico – She’d dared to do it and she sounds great!
No microphone necessary – download the app to your phone or go to the website: https://www.speakpipe.com/inglespodcast
This website has practice tests to help you prepare for the CAE listening at home: https://www.examenglish.com/cambridge_esol.php
This website practises other parts of the exam, but not the listening: http://www.flo-joe.com/
Good luck with the exam. We look forward to listening to your voice message! 🙂
Recommended website for FCE and CAE: https://virtuaule.com/
Voice message from Ana from Mexico who suggested we speak about natural disasters
We spoke about the weather in https://inglespodcast.com/99
Vocabulary
Earlier this year Mexico suffered an earthquake centred around the states of Puebla and Morelos. 
More than 40 buildings collapsed (many in Mexico City) and 370 people lost their lives (Wikipedia). Mexico is very seismically active.
Around 10,000 died in 1985. ‘The moles’ volunteers were formed (los topos).
Earthquake – tremor (vibration) – seismic activity – fault lines – Richter scale (to measure earthquakes on a scale of 1 – 10)
Tsunami
Tidal wave
Volcano – to erupt – magma (molten rock in the earth’s crust) – lava (molten rock) – flow
Tornado (violent windstorm over land – twister) – – whirlwind (a column of air whirling around itself)
Hurricane, cyclone and typhoon are the same (usually with heavy rains and winds) – hurricane’s mainly occur in the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific.
Typhoon is used in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.
Cyclone is used to describe both. In the Southern Hemisphere, The motion of the wind in a cyclone is clockwise; in the Northern Hemisphere it is counter/anti-clockwise.
Avalanche – snow storms – blizzard
heat wave – drought
forest fire – bush fire (bush – arbusto) – wildfire
Flood/Flooding – flash flood – monsoon
Landslide
Gale – gale-force winds – the beaufort scale (measures wind force from 0-12) – gust of wind – dust storm, sand storm
Blackout – power cut: not a natural disaster, but often caused by natural disasters
Solar flares every couple of hundred years. Last one burned out telegrams!
“Massive solar flares are sometimes accompanied by ‘coronal mass ejections’ (CMEs) which can trigger geomagnetic storms that have been known to disable satellites and knock out terrestrial electric power grids for extended periods of time.” – Wikipedia
Meteorite impact/strike
Discussion
Have you/Would you ever volunteer to help in a disaster?
What can you do to prepare for a disaster?
Are epidemics natural disasters?
Are all floods natural disasters? Compare the sea flooding a house during a storm to a village being flooded when a dam wall breaks
…and now it’s your turn to practise your English. Do you have any comments or questions about this episode? Or maybe an idea for a future episode?
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– How to Pass a Job Interview mp3 and pdf
Many thanks to Patricia from Madrid who has translated episode 8 and 9. Thanks also to Arminda from Madrid, Alberto from Granada and Angélica Bello from Madrid, we now have full transcriptions for episodes 131 to 142, and episodes 1 to 10.
On next week’s episode: Supermarket Vocabulary
The music in this podcast is by Pitx. The track is called ‘See You Later’
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
I really don’t want to be stuck-up now, but i just wanted to mention, talking about natural disasters, that I was “lucky” enough to survive the 2004 Asian tsunami when I was living in the Maldives. I could be talking for a while about this, but I will only say that it was quite an experience…
I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like being in that part of the world at that time, Josep. It was one of the worst disasters in recent years.
Indeed.!
I was lucky to be in a not-so-hit island. But there were many other islands with big loss of goods and some casualties. A month later, tones of debris from… Sri-Lanka, India (?) arrived to the north eastern Maldivian reefs. Along with heavyli decayed floating corpses…
Not a nice sight….
That sounds horrific, Josep. I’m glad to hear you escaped unharmed.
Thanks..
As I mentioned, I was lucky enough to be on one of the islands less hit by the tsunami.
I had been on Sri Lanka the day before… Anyway… I must have had an “Angel” beside me…..
In 2007, Peru was struck by a major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, one of the strongest since 1970. The main city affected was Pisco located around the Nazca fault. By the time, the Peruvian government had no warning system in place to prevent losses.