Chen's英語教室

上週三是311日本大地震的四週年，身為鄰國的我們，當然感同身受

台灣人的熱情，在當時也已大量的捐款及祈福活動，傳遞給日本國民

我們與日本之間的感情，實在複雜，但歷史是我們最好的借鏡，

讓我們不再重踏覆轍，才是最好的出路。

以下這篇報導，寫出大自然的力量，既使已經過了3年，

沿著太平洋洋流的日本漂流物仍持續在美國西岸被發現。

同學們練習閱讀時，可以先練習抓關鍵字

而練習抓關鍵字，一定要能看穿前後句意，把自己的單字抓出來

我建議你，限制每篇文章只能查5個單字

這5個單字要能幫助你回答問題，用這樣的練習方式

培養閱讀句意以及抓住重點的習慣，最後也能增加你的閱讀速度

(圖片來源)

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Debris from Japan's 2011 tsunami will continue to litter the North American coastline over the next three years, with everything from refrigerators to lumber and sports balls still floating offshore in the Pacific, an expert said on Tuesday.

About one million tons of debris was still lingering in the Pacific Ocean four years after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, set off a series of massive tsunami waves that devastated a wide swathe of Honshu's Pacific coastline and killed nearly 20,000 people.

It also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, leading to a series of explosions and meltdowns in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier.

The Oregon Sea Grant, a program at Oregon State University funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been working with researchers at Japan's Tottori University to monitor tsunami debris.

An estimated five million tons of wreckage - everything from cars to building materials, boats and docks - washed into the Pacific, and about 70 percent sank quickly to the ocean floor, experts in the United States and Japan said.

View gallery

Oregon Parks and Recreation Department photograph shows a metal placard bearing Japanese writing tha …

But items with buoyancy eventually caught the Pacific Ocean's currents and have since lodged as close as 25 miles (40 km) off the North American coast, covering an area from California to Alaska, said Sam Chan, an aquatic invasive species expert at Oregon Sea Grant.

"When it comes into our Pacific shores in North America it (the debris) tends to stay offshore for months and sometimes a year," he said. It's not until we actually end up with local storm events or changes in the season that debris comes ashore."

Over the past year, warmer temperatures and a lack of major storms have kept most of the refuse from washing up on land, but wave patterns and other oceanic conditions were likely to send more items headed to West Coast beaches this summer, he said.

Last summer, 26 Japanese boats floated ashore in Oregon, Washington state and Canada's British Columbia, Chan said.

In 2012, a massive, 66-foot-(20-meter-)long dock ripped from its moorings in Japan floated up on a beach north of Newport, Oregon, southwest of Portland.

The Japanese team has sent out about 70 battery operated tracking devices that float at different heights to simulate different kinds of debris in order to understand where in the Pacific the refuse has clustered.

(文章來源)

<單字及片語>

debris =wast/dust (廢土/廢棄物)

litter = 使...髒亂 (n. 垃圾)

lingering = 逗留

set off = start/begin (誘發)

devastated = destruct (摧毀性的) adj.

nuclear = 核能

explosion = burst (爆炸)

monitor = 監控 v. (n. 監視器)

wreckage = debris/remain (殘骸)

buoyancy = (浮力) n.

aquatic = (水上的) adj

         - aqua字首，跟水有關

ashore = (岸上地) adv.

dock = (碼頭) n.

mooring = (停泊處) n. 

clustered = (使擁擠) 

<討論問題>

1. What are the damages the earthquake caused in 2011?

2. What is the main reason the debris stay offshore from the coastline of US?

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