Exercise 2a. Listen to a man telling about a historic natural disaster of China. Fill the gaps with the missing words.
Over 100,000 people were killed in the (1) …………… floods, but the survivors had problems of their own. The floods killed crops, washed out grain storage (2) ……………, leveled houses, and destroyed roads. Many rural communities were (3) …………… and stranded without food, and without any way for aid to reach them. Ultimately, this is why the death toll was so high. Millions of people (4) …………… to death, disease swept through weakened communities, and homeless (5) ………… were stuck without shelter.
Exercise 2b. Listen again. Decide if the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
1. Most of China was flooded in that disaster. .................
2. A few decades before that time, China had suffered seriously .................
from the wars.
3. The ground was still submerged until the winter. .................
4. Some people in the disaster even had to eat the dead to survive
