Big Earthquakes in Northern Venezuela
委內瑞拉北部發生大地震
Introduction
On June 24, two big earthquakes hit northern Venezuela. Many people died and many buildings fell in La Guaira.
6月24日，委內瑞拉北部發生兩次大地震。在拉瓜伊拉（La Guaira），許多人喪生，許多建築物崩塌。
Main Body
Two earthquakes happened very fast. About 189 buildings fell and 800 buildings broke. More than 2,600 people died and 12,000 people were hurt. The UN sent 10,000 bags for the dead bodies.
兩次地震接連發生。約有189棟建築物崩塌，800棟建築物毀損。超過2,600人死亡，12,000人受傷。聯合國提供了10,000個屍體袋。
President Delcy Rodríguez says the government helped quickly. But the people say the government did not help for three days. Volunteers and people from the UK, USA, Brazil, and Mexico helped the victims.
總統 Delcy Rodríguez 表示政府迅速採取行動。但民眾則稱政府三天內都沒有提供援助。來自英國、美國、巴西和墨西哥的志工與民眾協助了受災者。
The USA sent 900 people and money to help. The damage costs about 10 billion dollars. The government and the World Bank have 200 million dollars to fix the city, but the country has too much debt.
美國派遣了900人並提供資金援助。損失金額約為100億美元。政府與世界銀行擁有2億美元用於重建城市，但該國債務過重。
Conclusion
People are still trying to fix the city. Many people have no homes and the politics are difficult.
人們仍在嘗試重建城市。許多人失去了家園，且政治局勢複雜。
Vocabulary Learning
🕒 The 'Time Jump'
In this story, we see two ways to talk about things that already happened. This is the most important part of moving to A2 level.
1. The Simple Past (Finished) When something is over and done, we add -ed to the word.
- hit (special word) hit
- happen happened
- help helped
2. The 'Still Happening' Now When the problem is not finished, we use are + -ing.
- People are still trying to fix the city.
🌍 Naming Places & People
Notice how we write names of countries and people. Always use a Big Letter (Capital):
- Venezuela
- USA
- Mexico
- Delcy Rodríguez
💰 Big Numbers Simplified
To understand the money in the text, remember these steps:
- Million 6 zeros (1,000,000)
- Billion 9 zeros (1,000,000,000)
Example: 10 billion is much, much more than 200 million.