World News for Students of English

06-11-2020 15:00

On Monday, a metro driver escaped injury when the front carriage rammed through the end of an elevated section of rails, and it was caught by a sculpture of a whale’s tail.

The incident happened at the final stop of a metro line on the southern edge of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The train dropped off passengers at the station before continuing to a parking area, which was where the incident occurred. The two whale tails were installed by architect Maarten Struijs almost 20 years ago. Struijs said that he expected the tail would have been damaged because it was made of plastic. However, it did not seem to be the case.

The train was balancing 10 meters off the ground in the park by a pond, and officials were discussing how to salvage it because it was very difficult to place heavy cranes at the location.

Difficult words: ram (to run or drive into something very hard), to be the case (to be true, to be accurate), balance (to be in a steady position in order not to fall), salvage (to rescue).

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