The night-walkers of Uganda

Vocabulary 1: Collocations
4
Match the words in the left-hand column with those in the right-hand column to make expressions
from the text.
1. presidential 
a. president
2. climate 
b. insurance
3. mobile 
c. treatment
4. medical 
d. phone
5. foreign 
e. camera
6. health
f. election
7. vice
g. policy
8. web
h. change
196

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YouTube at centre of 2008 presidential campaign
Level 1
Elementary
Vocabulary 2: Word building
5
Complete the table.
Vocabulary 3: Word stress
Put these words from the text into two groups depending on their word stress.
debate
campaign 
question 
mobile
disease
event
angry
college
welfare
guitar
support
second
6
verb
noun
1. treat
2. insure
3. connect
4. elect
5. organize
(person)
6. surround
(plural)
7. broadcast
8. fight
A 0 o
B o 0
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Read the headline and the sub-heading below. What do you think the article is going to be about?
Umbrellas breaking in the rain?
Rainwater filling houses and streets?
Tourists staying away because of the rain?
•
•
•
Going under
Level 1
Elementary
Pre-reading A: Predicting the content
1
Pre-reading B: Key words
2
Match these keywords from the text with the meanings below.

disaster
floods
results
run-off

 
drainage 
sewers
ploughs
absorb
1. ____________ removing liquids from something
2. ____________ water from rivers filling the land
3. ____________ a very bad accident or serious damage
4. ____________ a system of pipes underground to carry waste water away
5. ____________ things that happen because something else happened
6. ____________ take in liquid a little at a time 
7. ____________ too much water that cannot go down into the ground
8. ____________ digs up the land in lines, using machines
Now read the article, check the words in context, and see if your answer to Question 1 was correct.
Going under
Everyone knows that it often rains in Britain. We often have week upon 
week of rain. So why have a few heavy showers caused so much damage 
here this summer? 
Aida Edemariam reports 
July 24, 2007
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Going under
Everyone knows that it often rains in Britain. We 
often have week upon week of rain. So why have 
a few heavy showers caused so much damage 
here this summer?
 
Aida Edemariam reports 
July 24, 2007
People trying to take a train to or from the 
southwest of England this weekend could think 
they had accidentally walked into a disaster movie. 
Some trains never arrived, and the people who 
had to watch their homes and businesses go under 
water couldn’t believe that such a short rainstorm 
could cause so much damage. 
I can understand their surprise, because this 
country is famous for its wetness. Rain is our 
national weather. Snow can cause us problems, 
yes, and very hot weather, like last summer, 
causes difficulties, too – but rain? With our wide 
experience, surely we should lead the world in rain 
management. 
Unfortunately not. Thousands of people had 
to leave their homes over the weekend, and 
thousands more are still trapped inside their 
houses. Some towns in the south had floods of up 
to five metres. In the north of England, some people 
still can’t go home after last month’s floods, which 
killed 8 people. Everyone is asking how such short 
rainstorms – just one hour in London, slightly longer 
in other places – could have such terrible results. 
In fact, the answer is partly because it all happened 
so quickly. Brize Norton in Oxfordshire had 
121.2mm of rain between midnight Thursday and 
5pm Friday – a sixth of what it would expect for the 
whole year. South Yorkshire got a month’s worth of 
rain on June 25. It has been raining for weeks now, 
“and the ground is very wet, so immediately you get 
rainfall, you get runoff”, explains professor Adrian 
Saul, of Sheffield University. 
It isn’t just that the ground cannot absorb so much 
so fast – drainage systems get too full, too. “When 
you design a system you have to plan for possible 
dangers, and generally the plans are good enough 
to protect our communities,” says Saul. “It’s very 
lucky that the Victorians built the systems as big as 
they did. Especially in London, they thought the city 
would get bigger, and that has protected London 
until now.” But London’s population is now four 
times as big – and last Friday, the sewers couldn’t 
handle so much water.
“Our sewers are not designed to have so much 
water flowing through them,” says Nicola Savage, 
a spokeswoman for Thames Water. And they are 
not designed for the way we use them nowadays. 
“We each, personally, use much more water than 
ever before. Also, the public often use the sewers 
as a rubbish bin,” Savage adds. “People put things 
like babies’ nappies down the toilet. And also, we 
need to encourage people not to pour fat and oil 
down the sink. The sewers were never designed to 
handle this kind of thing.” 
Saul is also investigating how farmers can control 
the flow of water off land. If Farmers plough across 
hills, not down them, there will be less runoff. And 
carefully placed trees can help stop flooding. Also, 
the more animals walk over a piece of land, the 
harder the ground becomes, and the less water it 
can absorb. Then, plants can’t grow well, and there 
won’t be enough food. And if farm animals get no 
drinking water for 48 hours, thousands will die, and 
meat will cost more.
Scientists are also investigating how each of us can 
help reduce a problem that, in fact, we have helped 
create: by extending our houses, paving driveways, 
and building car parks. All this takes away soft 
ground that could absorb water, and adds to the 
runoff into drains and rivers. And we should collect 
any water that runs off the house instead of letting it 
go into the sewerage system. We can use rainwater 
to flush toilets or run washing machines. Every little 
helps. 
For although this month’s weather in Britain has 
been very unusual, that may happen more, and 
more often, as our climate changes. Today people 
in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire are having to 
leave their houses. Tomorrow, next month, next 
year – who knows?