Part 2. News Items.

A. Keywords. fire, oil pipeline, fuel-loading area.

Vocabulary. pipeline, leak, blast, rip, depot, litter, char, blaze, vandal, Lagos.

You're going to hear a pair of news items on the same topic presented in special and standard English.

Listen carefully and summarize the news according to the cues given.

Nigeria: more than 50 people have died in a fire from an oil pipeline explosion near Lagos.

The explosion and fire happened near a fuel-loading area owned by Nigeria's National Petroleum Cooperation.

This is the latest in a series of pipeline fires in Nigeria this year.

The series have killed hundreds of people.

The government says people who steal fuel from leaking pipes caused some of the fires.

It also blames people who cause damage on purpose.

More than 50 people are dead in Nigeria after a leaking oil pipeline burst into flames outside the commercial capital Lagos.

The blast and resulting fires Thursday ripped through an area near a fuel-loading depot owned by the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation.

Witnesses report seeing burned bodies littering the charred grounds while many other victims are being treated for injures sustained in the blaze.

A spokesman for the petroleum company says the fire was caused by a vandal.

B. Keywords. accident, military plane, cable car, low-level flight.

Vocabulary. cable car, plunge, dangle, commander, suspend.

Here is another news item, complete the news summary and briefly answer the questions you hear.

A accident at a ski resort in Northern Italy in which an American military plane cut the wires of a cable car during a low-level training flight has killed 20 people.

One car plunged about 100 meters into the snow, killing everyone aboard.

An operator was rescued unhurt from a second car left dangling in the air after the accident.

The plane returned to its base 60 kilometers away, the crew unaware of the accident.

Commanders of the base have since started an investigation and suspended all low-level missions in Italy until further notice.

Questions. A. What is the cause of the disaster?

B. How many people have been killed?

C. How far away is the military base?

D. What have the commanders of the base done since the accident?

C. Keywords. floods, landslides, shelters, houses, coastal area, relief and reconstruction efforts.

Vocabulary. landslide, shelter, survive, urge, generous, devastating, resolution, assembly, priority, barracks, Venezuela.

Now listen to the final pair of news items, summarize the news according to the cues given, then answer the questions you hear.

Venezuela: Tens of thousands of people are affected by recent floods and landslides are preparing to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays in shelters.

Officials estimated that the homes of as many as 140,000 people were destroyed.

Venezuela official say the floods and landslides may have caused the death of as many as 30,000 people.

Experts say poor city planning was a major cause of the damage.

Many houses were built on weak ground or on the sides of mountains along the northern coast.

The Venezuela Defence Minister says survivors need to cooperate with government effort to move them away from the coastal area.

The United Nations has urged the international community to give quick and generous aid to Venezuela to help it recover from last week's devastating floods and mudslides.

A resolution passed in the general assembly said it was deeply concerned over tremendous loss of live and serve destruction of the country.

As many as 30,000 people are thought to have been killed.

Officials have estimated the relief and reconstruction efforts as costing some 50 billion dollars.

Officials here say that reconstruction efforts could take several years to complete.

They say the priority is to build new housing for the 150,000 people who'd been made homeless.

These people are now sleeping in an emergency shelters set up in stadium, car parks, airports and military barracks.

President Hugo Chavez says that he is looking at several different places across the country in which to build new houses, all in plain areas away from the coast.

Mr Chavez says that the government will not rebuild houses in the parts of northern coastal regions destroyed by floods and landslide.

Relief efforts are continuing in damaged coastal regions.

Questions. A. What has the United Nations urged the international community to do?

B. According to Venezuela officials, what is the priority now?

C. Where are the emergency shelter set up?

D. According to president Hugo Chavez, where will the new houses be built?