Water takes a house - level 2
Footage, which shows the moment Typhoon Haiyan roared into the Philippines, has been released.
The video was filmed by a charity worker. He and five others were on the top of a building, while the video was being filmed. The video shows how the storm washed away a house. An area of land was underwater in less than 30 seconds. The wind speed was 170 miles per hour (273 kilometers per hour).
Much of the charity worker’s house was destroyed, but he still managed to survive. After the storm subsided, he was able to help other survivors.
Difficult words: footage (video), roar (arrive), subside (become less intense).
Synchronized walking
You have probably heard of synchronized swimming in which the swimmers move in patterns in the water to music.
Well, there is a new sport similar to it in Japan. It is called “Collective Action” or “Shudankodo” in Japanese. It has become very popular thanks to a YouTube video which went viral last year.
Students at a famous university in Japan practiced three days a week for five months. They performed their “Shudankodo” at a stadium recently. It was an interesting sight. You should see the video of it!
Difficult words: pattern (organized and regular way), viral (extremely popular).
Motorcyclist is on fire
Security cameras in China captured a shocking moment. The video shows somebody on a motorcycle who is close to a lorry.
The woman on the motorcycle gets too close to the lorry and collides with it. The motorcycle starts to burn. The woman and the motorbike are pulled by the lorry until the bike separates and explodes. The woman is on fire and jumps into nearby bushes.
Luckily, people hurry to help her. They put out the fire. The woman was moved to the hospital.
Difficult words: capture (film), collide (hit), separate (get away from something).
Lion kills lioness
A male lion killed a lioness at a zoo in Texas. Many visitors didn’t realise what was happening. They thought that the animals were playing.
Staff at the zoo were shocked and confused by the incident. They have no idea why the lion killed the lioness. The two lions lived together in peace for a long time.
Some witnesses described the sad incident. One man said that there was no blood, and that the lion held the lioness for about 10 to 15 minutes until she was lifeless. The vice president of the zoo has been in the zoo business for 35 years. He has never seen anything like this until now.
Difficult words: lioness (female lion), staff (workers), lifeless (dead).
New island in Japan
A new island was born in the Pacific. The moment was captured by the Japanese coastguard.
The 200-metre island was created by an eruption of an underwater volcano. The small island joins another 6,000 islands which are located to the south of Tokyo. If the island survives, it will technically become part of Tokyo.
The island has not been named yet, as it may sink back into the water. The last time an island was formed in the region was in the 1970s.
Difficult words: coastguard (organisation that helps swimmers and ships that are in danger), eruption (when a volcano explodes), sink (to go down).
Special statue in Manchester
Curators at the Manchester Museum noticed something weird. A 4,000 year-old Egyptian statue rotated.
Scientists wanted to find out the reason for this. They set up a camera and something that measured vibrations. The camera captured the statue over a long period of time. When the scientistss had pictures, they could saw it moving.
It turned out that the statue rotates during the busiest hours of the day, especially around 6 and 7 o’clock in the morning and 6 o’clock in the evening. The statue rotates because of vibration and at these times, the vibrations are the strongest.
Difficult words: curator (person who works at a museum), weird (strange), turn out (be discovered).
Man walks on bottles
Not just one, but two world records were broken by one person on Thursday.
The German man broke the record for walking on upright bottles. There were 60 of them in a line. The second record was just as interesting. Somebody was playing darts and the German was standing in front of the target. He caught the darts. He managed to catch 16 with his hands in one minute.
The man was very happy with his success and encouraged others to beat his records.
Difficult words: upright (standing straight up), darts (game in which you throw fast small pointy things at a target), encourage (say something that helps you do something).
Russian plane explodes
An airplane, which was flying from Moscow, crashed at a Russian airport. The moment of the impact was captured on security cameras.
The plane couldn’t land its first time. When it tried to land a second time, it lost altitude and hit the runway. All 50 people on board were killed. One of them was British.
The cause of the crash is being investigated.
Difficult words: impact (moment when it crashed), altitude (height), runway (a long road on which planes land and take off).
Woman sells her baby
Police in Turkey arrested a woman at an airport in Istanbul. She allegedly tried to sell her baby.
The 22 year old woman was filmed by security cameras with a big bag. Her baby was inside it. She went into the toilet with the bag and left without it. Another woman was later filmed when she was left the toilets. She was carrying the same bag.
This woman was the one who bought the baby. However, she didn’t keep the baby because she realised that she could not leave Turkey without the necessary documents. She contacted police and reported the abandoned baby in the toilet. Unlike the mother, she was not arrested.
Difficult words: allegedly (we don’t know it for sure), abandoned (left).
Very fast parking
A man or a woman in England tried to drive out of a car park. The driver reversed slowly from a space at first, but then he or she accidentally accelerated and hit two parked cars.
We don’t know why the driver accelerated so suddenly. Maybe it was just a slip of the foot. Things like these happen sometimes, but it was not nice of the driver to drive away and not even leave a note for the owners of the damaged cars.
Security cameras failed to capture the car’s registration plate, so the police cannot identify the driver.
Difficult words: reverse (go back), accelerate (go faster), registration plate (sign with the car’s registration number).