World News for Students of English

11-08-2014 15:00

A three-year-old boy and an 88-year-old woman have been rescued after being buried under rubble, following Sunday’s 6.5 magnitude earthquake in China.

The woman was buried for 50 hours after her house collapsed in Ludian County, five kilometres from the epicentre.

After taking six hours to rescue the woman, rescuers say she is now in a stable condition and receiving medical treatment in hospital.

Three-year-old Tong Tong was found in Longtoushan Town after the two-storey building he was in collapsed. Rescue workers crawled into the debris and found him with his arm stuck under a sofa and gradually losing consciousness. The operation proceeded slowly due to a heavy beam on the sofa and lack of enough space, but Tong Tong was successfully rescued after being stranded in the debris for an hour. He was then sent to hospital for treatment.

Difficult words: rubble (broken stones or bricks from a building), magnitude (size), epicentre (place on land that is right above the point where an earthquake begins inside the Earth), debris (pieces of something that has been broken), gradually (slowly), due to (because of), beam (long heavy piece of wood or metal), stranded (stuck).

Source: www.itn.co.uk