On 11th March, 2011, at 14:46 local time, an undersea earthquake struckoff the northeastern coast of Japan. The force of the earthquake, the mostpowerful in Japan’s history, triggered a devastating tsunami.Theworld faced a partial nuclear meltdown and the planet moved on its axis,shortening the length of every day by 1.8 milliseconds. It was a terriblenational tragedy that the country will need a great deal of time to recoverfrom.In the days before the main earthquake, Japan had experienced quite afew foreshocks, some of which exceeded magnitude 7, but nothingcould prepare the nation for the main shock, a magnitude 9 quake. Itwas strong enough to be felt hundreds of kilometres away in Tokyowhere buildings shook violently and many office workers ran out ontothe streets terrified.Much worse was yet to come as theauthorities issued a tsunami warning.Frantic residents headed for high ground, rooftops or upper floors ofbuildings. Soon after, a wall of water, 10 m high in some places, rolledacross the Pacific Ocean and crashed into the coast.One giantwave even crashed through an airport in Sendai, leaving 1,300 peoplestranded on the upper floors. The waters reached up to 10 km inlandbefore heading back out to sea, now loaded with debris and leaving aswamp-like landscape of landslides and mud. TV viewers couldn’tbelieve their eyes as these scenes were broadcast around the world.By this time, many areas were without electricity as pylons hadcrumbled which caused a major disaster at Japan's nuclear powerstations.The government immediately ordered an evacuationof hundreds of thousands of residents. Explosions rocked the plantas courageous technicians struggled to control the damage andprevent a nuclear meltdown.Over the next few days, a large number of aftershocks continued toshake Japan, causing plenty of problems for rescue teams as theyraced to find survivors. Several countries sent relief workers and theworld held its breath while it waited to see how the tragedy wouldend.Over 15,000 people died that day and thousands morewere missing. Several amazing tales of survival came to theattention of the world’s press, though. A 4-month-old baby girl waspulled alive from the rubble four days after the earthquake. A manwas found clinging to his rooftop as it was floating 14 km out at sea2 days after the tsunami. And there was the Japanese student inCalifornia, desperate for news of her lost family, who found them ona YouTube news clip. It showed her sister holding up a sign andsending a desperately-needed message of hope across the world:“We all survived.”

3Read the text again. Fivesentences are missing. Matcheach sentence (A-F) to a gap(1-5). There is one extrasentence.ACloser to the epicentre, buildingscollapsed, roads and railways wereripped apart and fires blazed.BThe evacuation zone around thenuclear power plant was soonincreased to 20 km.CMany thousands of people losttheir lives and roads, buildings andentire villages were swept away.DSadly, there were hardly anysurvivors.EWithout power, the cooling systemat the Fukushima No. 1 Plant failed.FIt washed away houses and carsand hurled ships far inland, carryingthem along and slamming theminto whatever lay in their path.