Brandon Alejandro Constante Casas

Work with a partner. Together, choose the correct form of each verb.
When you are finished, listen to check your answers:

On March 11th, 2011, at 2:46pm, near the northeastern coast of the country,
Japan experienced an undersea earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter Scale.

Shortly after, Hiromaru Sasazaki was looking at the damage in his fishing shop in
Rikuzentakata when a tsunami alarm went off. People didn't do anything because
two days earlier, another alarm went off after an earthquake had turned up
waves only 60 centimetres high.

This time however, the alarm gave warning of 3-metre-waves. This didn’t scare
Hiro as his town had a wall along the coast much higher than 3 metres.

He decided to go home to his wife. When he (d) (arrived) , his wife was gone.
She (e) (had left) the apartment. Suddenly, he (f) (heard ) a woman's scream
from outside and (g) (saw ) a wall of water crash into his apartment building. The
tsunami cut the building into two pieces, pulling the second storey of the building,
and Hiro’s home, into the water. The whole second floor of the apartment began
moving away in the water. Below him, the waves were destroying the floor. The
strength of the water hitting the floor broke Hiro’s leg.

Water began to quickly enter through the floor of Hiro’s apartment. Luckily, he
was able to climb to the roof. While the building (h) (/ was moving) with the
waves, Hiro noticed a helicopter flying above. He waved to the helicopter and it
soon flew down close to him. But when it flew close to him, Hiro realized the
helicopter could not help him. It was a television helicopter. It soon flew away.

After about 30 minutes of moving with the waves,

seeing cars, furniture and burning homes pass him
by, he knew that he (i) (moved /) towards the ocean
and away from land. If he stayed with the home, he
would enter the ocean and probably die. It was his
last chance.

He jumped into the dirty, ice-cold water and tried to

swim to land. It was nearly impossible because of his
broken leg. Also, while he was swimming, his hands
(j) (/ hit) objects like wood, furniture, cars, and other
things that the water had taken with it.

Hiro finally (k) (swam /) to land and (l) (went /) to the

top of a hill in his town. He saw that many people had
gone there when they heard the tsunami alarm. After
a few hours, from a window on the ground floor, he saw his wife Nobuko, who
was searching for him. He shouted. She saw him and rushed in.

Hiro and Nobuko are now rebuilding their lives as their home and town were both
destroyed. It is hard to imagine that they were the lucky ones because the
earthquake and tsunami of 2011 caused more than 15,000 deaths. The cost of
the damage was $230 billion, making this the most expensive natural disaster in
history.