39秒，两次强震：委内瑞拉大地震，为什么夺走了上千条生命？

Today we'll talk about a very heavy event that just happened — the Venezuela earthquake.

Venezuela is a country in northern South America, far from China.

But this earthquake was so severe that the whole world is watching.

It happened on the evening of June 24th.

Many people had just gotten home from work and were about to have dinner.

Just then, the earth suddenly began to shake violently.

The most terrifying part is that it wasn't one quake, but two in a row.

The first was magnitude 7.2; just thirty-nine seconds later, the second came, reaching 7.5.

The two quakes stacked together, shaking the ground for a full minute and more.

It is the strongest earthquake Venezuela has faced in over a hundred years.

Hardest hit were the capital, Caracas, and the nearby port city of La Guaira.

Caracas is a big city, its downtown full of high-rises.

When the quake hit, several high-rises collapsed entirely — like toy blocks.

One of them, a building of more than twenty floors, was leveled in mere seconds.

The people living inside had no time at all to escape.

So far, the quake has killed more than 1,400 people.

Over three thousand more were injured, and tens of thousands left homeless.

Even more wrenching, tens of thousands remain buried under the rubble, still missing.

So an unavoidable question: why were the casualties so devastating?

The sheer strength of the quake is, of course, one reason.

But experts point to another, more painful reason: the buildings themselves.

Many local buildings were simply not built solidly.

Some were very old; others were built too fast, in too much of a rush, with quality falling behind.

There's also a dangerous kind of building with an open, hollow ground floor used as a garage or shopfront.

When a strong quake hits such a building, the upper floors crash straight down and the whole thing 'stacks' together.

So what truly takes lives is often not the quake, but these flimsy buildings.

After an earthquake, time is life.

For the buried, every extra hour means a little less hope of survival.

So the first three days after the disaster — the so-called 'golden 72 hours' — are critical.

To seize these three days, the whole world sprang into action.

Mexico, Spain, France, Chile and many other countries urgently sent rescue teams.

With search dogs and instruments, they comb the rubble bit by bit for those still alive.

Speaking of this, I want to say one more thing to you.

A disaster like this, on the other side of the globe, seems far from us.

But this time, among the dead were eight Chinese compatriots.

In that moment you realize the so-called 'far away' is, in fact, tightly bound to us.

Finally, I want to leave you two questions.

First, we always say 'natural disaster' — but in this tragedy, how much was really 'man-made'?

Second, if one day an earthquake really happens near you, are you and your family prepared?

These two questions have no standard answer, but they're worth thinking about seriously.