原油泄漏事件A Big Oil Disaster

Dean

Here is the reading for English learners. I hope it can help  to improve  reading skills:

Crews in the Gulf of Mexico are racing to contain a growing oil spill（泄漏）. The slick is the result of an explosion that occurred on April 20 aboard an oil rig（钻塔） off the coast of Louisiana. Huge amounts of oil continue to leak into the sea from a well 5,000 feet below the rig site.
An estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day are spewing out（喷出） from the ocean floor. By April 26, the sticky spill had grown to more than 1,800 square miles. That's larger than the state of Rhode Island.
The dark ooze（油渍） is threatening hundreds of species of wildlife. The waters are home to dolphins（海豚）, sea turtles and other marine（海洋） animals. If the slick keeps growing, it could affect the coastlines of four states. "The problems are going to be the beaches," says George Crozier, an oceanographer（海洋学家）. "That's where it will be really visible."
On April 28, the Coast Guard tested a plan to burn off the oil slick. This will cause the oil to harden into balls of tar（焦油） that can be removed from the water more easily. Officials do not expect the burn area to affect marine life. The cost of the cleanup could total $1 billion.
There were 126 workers on the rig at the time of the blast. Eleven of them are missing. The cause of the explosion is under investigation（调查）.

dinoyen

save our ocean....

Dean

Heal the world. Make it a better place, for and for me.