Brazil: Worst floods in 80 years: BBC News Review

Worst flooding in 80 years hits southern Brazil.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English where we help you understand news headlines in English.

I'm Beth. And I'm Georgie.

Make sure you watch to the end to learn the vocabulary

you need to talk about this story.

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from the headlines. Now, today's story.

Heavy rains in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul

have left hundreds of towns under water.

Over 90 people have died in the floods and

about 155 thousand have had to leave their homes.

More than 130 people are still missing.

More heavy rain is expected in the region this week.

You've been looking at the headlines.

What's the vocabulary that people need to understand this news story in English?

We have: torrential, displaced and wreak havoc.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English.  

Let's have our first headline.

This one is from the Guardian. Weather tracker:

torrential rainstorms cause death and destruction in Brazil.

So, this headline says that heavy rain is causing floods in Brazil.

We are looking at the adjective torrential

and this comes from the noun torrent. Georgie,

what is a torrent?

Torrent means very fast-flowing water.

So, imagine a stream, a fast stream, a river or a waterfall

has torrents of water.

So when we describe rain as torrential,

the adjective,

we mean very strong, heavy rainfall.

So, imagine torrents of water falling from the sky.

As you can imagine, torrential rain often causes floods and destruction.

Now, we almost always use torrential to describe fast-flowing water,

but specifically rain.

Now we really use it to emphasise just how much rain

there is. That's right.

We do also use it to exaggerate, as well.

So even if the rain doesn't cause floods and destruction, like it has in Brazil,

we might still use it to sound dramatic.

So, this weekend

for example, in the UK, we had a lot of heavy rain.

I might say that it was torrential rain.

I had to cancel my plans.

Yes. That is a good example of exaggeration.

It wasn't that bad.

Now, instead of torrential,

we can also say it's pouring, which again

means a lot of rain and in the UK

we often say it's chucking it down, which means, again,

it's raining really heavily.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This one is from the Deccan Herald. Death

toll from Brazil rains climbs to 83, thousands displaced.

Now, this headline says that the death toll in Brazil is climbing. Death toll

means the number of people who have died and climb means increase,

but we are looking at the word,

displaced. It has the word place in it, which is a noun.

You know that word.

We are in a studio.

That is a place.

But Georgie, how do we use it as a verb?

Well, if you place something somewhere,

it means that you put it somewhere.

So, Beth. Can I place something in your

hand? Yes. OK.

I placed the water bottle in your hand. I put it there.

OK, so that is place.

But here, we're looking at displaced.

And when we add the prefix dis-, it actually means

the opposite and displaced is very often used for serious things.

Yes, it means to move someone or something

from their original position and, in the headline,

we have thousands displaced.

And here, we're talking about thousands of people being displaced.

That means the floods caused them to leave their homes

because it's become too dangerous.

We do hear the word displaced very often

in the context of war and natural disasters, like

in the headline here, when something is too dangerous

and people are forced to move away.

Yes. And don't confuse displaced with misplaced.

They sound similar, but they have different prefixes

which gives them different meanings.

So, misplace means that you put something in the wrong place or lose it.

So, this morning, for example.

I misplaced my keys, and that means I couldn't find them.

Have you found them now?

Yes. Good. OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This one is from Peoples Dispatch. Floods wreak

havoc on southern Brazilian state with 83 confirmed deaths.

Now, again, this headline is talking about the floods in Brazil,

but we are looking at wreak havoc.

Now, this is very often seen together as a combination,

but can you break it down for us?

Yes. Let's start with havoc.

Havoc is a noun

which means chaos or destruction, and wreak has a similar meaning to cause.

So, together, the meaning is similar to cause chaos.

The floods are wreaking havoc in Brazil.

They are causing chaos. As you said, wreak havoc

is common as a combination. Wreak on its own is not common and

you shouldn't use it any time you want  

to say the word cause. Right.

We could say 'pollution causes climate change' and

we definitely wouldn't say 'pollution

wreaks climate change' - it just sounds very strange.

Now, wreak is almost always followed by havoc in modern English,

but the word havoc is a little bit more flexible.

So, apart from wreak havoc,

we could say cause havoc or unleash

havoc. Any more examples?

So, this morning,

we had a lot of train cancellations, which wreaked havoc

on people trying to get to work on time.

And as we know,

the pandemic wreaked havoc on the the economy. It did.

OK, let's look at that again.

We've had torrential - describes heavy rain,

displaced - moved from the original position and

wreak havoc - cause chaos. Now, if you're interested in

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