A 7.0 magnitude（级）earthquake killed more than 230,000 people in Haiti. Then an 8.8 magnitude quake killed more than 900 people in Chile. And few weeks later, a 6.0 magnitude quake struck rural eastern Turkey, killing at least 57 people.
The earthquakes kept coming hard and fast.
1 It’s not. The problem is what’s happening above ground, not underground, experts say.
2 They’re rapidly putting up buildings that can’t stand up to earth quakes, scientists believe.
And news reports and better earthquake monitoring make it seem as if earth quakes are increasing all the time.
On average, there are 134 earthquakes a year that have a magnitude between 6.0 and 6.9. So far this year there have been 40 earthquakes—more than in most years for that time period. But that’s because the 8.8 quake in Chile caused a large number of strong aftershocks.
Also, it’s not the number of quakes, but their destructive effects that gain attention. The death is largely due to building standards,
3 Paul Earle, a US seismologist, called for better building standards in the world’s big cities.
Of the 130 cities worldwide with populations of more than I million, more than half are likely to be hit by earthquakes.
4 “If you have a problem feeding yourself, you’re not really going to worry about earthquakes,” said Paul.
The earthquakes made everyone start to think
5 “People are paying attention to the violent planet we’re always lived on. Come back an another six moths if there has been no earthquakes, most people will have forgotten it again,” said US disaster researcher Dennis Mileti.
A．But it won’t last.
B．More people are moving into big cities.
C．Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do.
D．There have been more deaths overt the past decade from earthquakes.
E．Many people began to wonder if something terrible is happening underground.
F．While it seems as if the are more earthquakes occurring, there really aren’t.
G．But developing nations with growing populations don’t pay attention to earthquake preparedness.
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