An earthquake is a shaking movement of the ground, (5) _____ by the slippage or rupture of a fault within the Earth’s crust. Every year more than 3 million earthquake take place, most of these unnoticed by humans. In (6) _____, a severe earthquake is the most frightening and can occur anywhere on the surface of our planet! (7) _____ usually lasting only seconds, a severe earthquake in a densely populated area may have effects causing the (8) ______ of hundreds of people, injuries, destruction and enormous damage to the economies of the affected areas. A lot of people have been killed (9) _____ earthquakes although scientists (10) _____ able to predict and forewarm in advance and engineers construct earthquake-safe buildings. (11) _____, earthquakes often occur in countries which are unable to afford earthquake-safe construction.