Earthquakes are quite common. In fact, thousands of earthquakes are happening almost at every moment. , most of them are too weak to feel. During a big earthquake, there is often a big noise first. Then the earth shakes (terrible) and many houses fall down.
As one of the most deadly natural disasters in the world, earthquakes often result many people being injured or killed. In 2008, a terrible earthquake (strike) China's Sichuan Province, killing tens of thousands of people there.
Besides the great damage and deaths (cause) by the earthquake, other accidents such as fires often follow. More buildings may be damaged and more injuries may be caused. For (century), people have been making studies of earthquakes. About 2,000 years ago, for example, Chinese scientist named Zhang Heng invented a machine which could find out the direction where the earthquake waves came.
With the rapid (develop) of modern science and technology, we now know a lot (much) about earthquakes. However, scientists still have difficulty (predict) exactly when and where the earthquake will happen, and can't stop it from happening.
