BBC Learning English
Words in the News

Typhoon Haiyan:
Destruction in the Philippines

11 November 2013

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Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2013

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bbclearningenglish.com

Officials estimate up to 10,000 people have died in Tacloban city and elsewhere in the

Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. Many other people are now struggling to

survive without food, shelter or clean drinking water.

Jon Donnison reports for the BBC:

Tacloban has been flattened. Driving down the main high street, hardly a single building

is left standing. People say this town was hit by a wall of water when the typhoon struck

on Friday.

There's the stench of rotting corpses. Driving in from the airport we saw scores of

bodies lying by the roadside. For three days they have been there – nobody to bury them.

People are desperate for food, clean water and shelter. At the badly battered airport, a

makeshift hospital has been set up. We saw two young women giving birth, laid out

among the debris.

Aid is getting in, but slowly and this is just one town in one province. Nobody knows the

full extent of the devastation elsewhere.

Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2013

Page 2 of 2

bbclearningenglish.com

Vocabulary and definitions

flattened

completely destroyed

struck

hit

stench

very bad smell, especially of decay

scores

many / measured in sets of twenty

shelter

temporary place where someone can live

battered

hit or badly damaged

makeshift

made quickly using whatever materials are available

debris

the broken pieces of something larger that has been

destroyed

Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2013/11/131111_witn_typhoon_story.shtml

Related story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24894529