Search for survivors after New Year's Day earthquake hits Japan.
This is News Review from BBC
Learning English where we help you understand news headlines in English.
I'm Neil and I'm Georgie.
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you need to talk about this story.
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Emergency services are searching
for trapped survivors following powerful earthquakes in Japan.
At least sixty four people have died so far
after a series of quakes on New Year's Day. Images taken by helicopters
show many fires and widespread damage to infrastructure and buildings.
You've been looking at the headlines, Georgie.
What's the vocabulary
people need to understand this news story in English?
We have: battle against time, rocked by and aftershock.
This is News Review from BBC Learning English.
Let's have a look at our first headline.
This one's from the Guardian.
Japan earthquakes: 'battle
against time' to find those trapped under rubble as death toll rises
So this headline talks about the time pressure to find people trapped
under the rubble after the earthquakes in Japan. Rubble
is the broken bits of buildings,
but we're looking at the expression battle against time,
which contains the word battle,
Georgie and I know this word from the context of war.
But this isn't about a war,
so why is it being used?
Yes, you're right. Battle is used to talk about war,
a battle is like a fight and in a fight
we have two sides, fighting against each other. So here,
The rescuers are in a fight against time.
They're in a hurry to make sure as many people survive as possible.
There is another similar
expression, Neil. Yes so we also have race
against time, which is similar in meaning to battle against time,
but instead of fighting,
we're talking about moving fast.
The sense that time is running out.
It could be too late soon.
What other examples have we got of the expression battle against time.
When can we use it? Well, like in this story,
We use battle against time for
search and rescue operations or natural disasters to help people quickly
before the situation gets worse.
But we could also use it for things like work deadlines and exams.
So, a student might be in a battle against time to answer all the questions
before the time runs out.
OK, let's look at that again.
Let's have our next headline.
This one's from ITV News
Death toll continues to rise
after Japan rocked by powerful earthquakes
This headline tells us about the number
of people who have been killed by this earthquake in Japan,
we call that the death toll.
But we're looking at the expression rocked by, which contains the word rock
and I think probably most people know what a rock is as a noun,
but this is a verb here.
What does it mean, Georgie?
Yes, well rocked is literally this action
to move from one side to another.
So you can rock a baby, rock a boat.
If you imagine a boat being rocked side to side in the waves.
You can even rock backwards and forwards on a chair for example.
Yes so in this case, Japan was physically rocked by the earthquake,
the ground moved, it's a literal meaning.
Exactly. But there is also a metaphorical meaning.
a group of people or society can be rocked by a major event or
a big change which means that it causes surprise, shock or emotional impact.
Yeah, and in this headline in fact, both of those meanings we can see them both.
There's the physical movement of the ground,
but also the emotional movement of people.
It's a big, scary event. Let's look at that again.
Let's have our next headline.
This one's from the Telegraph. Powerful aftershocks rock
Japan after New Year's Day earthquake
kills sixty two.
This headline talks about what happened in Japan
since the main earthquakes on New Year's Day,
we see that word rock again, which we learnt about in the last headline,
but we're interested this time in aftershocks.
What are aftershocks, Georgie?
Well, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake or shock that happens
after the first main earthquake.
They can happen minutes, hours,
days or even weeks after the first earthquake
And they're usually smaller,
but that doesn't mean, they don't cause damage and
in fact, there have been aftershocks, causing further problems
in the surrounding areas.
This word aftershocks, though,
is there another meaning
that's not literal?
Yes.
Again, it's often used metaphorically to describe consequences or impacts
of a major event or change.
So, for example, with the COVID lockdowns
there were many aftershocks
like damage to the economy and damage to people's mental health.
Let's look at that again.
We've had a battle against time a rush to complete something.
Rocked by moved from one side to
another or shaken emotionally and aftershock
smaller, secondary earthquake,
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