大家有感覺到地震嗎

今天下課後在跟一群學生聊天，可能是我太嗨了，有人提醒我才感覺到有地震。
最近有一大堆小地震，因為今年正是九二一大地震的十週年，很多人都開始感到害怕，擔心是否會有強烈地震。中央氣象局要大家別太擔心，一連串的小地震未必代表會有大地震發生。
一起來看看這篇報導吧，學些和地震有關的詞彙。

seismology 地震學
magnitude 強度
Richter scale 芮氏規模
tremor 震顫
crustal 地殼的
be centered 震央位於

來源：China Post
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/print/218316.htm
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A series of 20 earthquakes that hit Yilan County's Nanao area over a recent 14-hour period do not necessarily presage the advent of a major earthquake, a Central Weather Bureau official said Wednesday.
Hsiao Nai-chi, a division chief at the Central Weather Bureau's Seismology Center, was commenting on the 23 earthquakes that rocked the northeastern county and the two eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung between 4: 45 p.m. Tuesday and 6: 42 a.m. Wednesday, with 20 centered around Nanao Township.
"Only one of those quakes was a magnitude 5 on the open-ended Richter scale, and the remaining quakes were magnitude 4 or even less intense, " Hsiao said, adding that most of the tremors affected only limited areas.
Yilan and Hualien have traditionally been the areas most prone to seismic activity in Taiwan because of the movement and collisions of crustal plates, Hsiao said.
Speculation that a major earthquake may strike soon has arisen recently because of the higher-than-normal frequency of earthquakes around the island in recent days.
On Sunday alone, two medium-intensity earthquakes jolted Taiwan.
One of them, of magnitude 5.4, was centered in Mingchien Township in central Taiwan's Nantou County.
The other, a magnitude 5.5 quake, struck 15 kilometers northwest of the Yuli seismic station in Hualien County at a depth of 2.5 kilometers.
As this year marks the 10th anniversary of the deadly Sept. 21, 1999 earthquake, Sunday's earthquake in Nantou area further fueled misgivings among some local residents that Taiwan may have entered yet another seismic peak cycle.
The mountainous Nantou County took the brunt of the 921 earthquake, the worst natural disaster to hit Taiwan in the last century, with a death toll (死亡人數) of around 2,500.
Hsiao said, however, that speculation of a strong earthquake being imminent is groundless.
"As a matter of fact (事實上), the recent spate of earthquakes have allowed the normal release of gravitational energy, a trend that could theorectically help stem a devastating (毀滅性的) temblor, " Hsiao explained.
Practical observations also show that the number of tremors cannot be correlated (相關) to a major earthquake, he added.
According to (根據) Seismology Center statistics, Taiwan was hit by an average of 21,295 earthquakes annually between 1994 and 2008.
In the first half of this year, 8,918 earthquakes were recorded, Hsiao said, adding that the number did not exceed the normal average.
根據地震中心的數據，臺灣在一九九四到二零零八年之間，每年平均會有兩萬一千兩百九十五個地震。今年上半年度，記錄到八千九百一十八的地震，這個數字並未超過正常值。
咦，我只感覺到幾次耶。人體畢竟不是精確的測量儀器。還好還好，可以鬆一口氣。
Hsiao also dismissed speculation that a strong earthquake could hit once every 10 years, saying no basic rule can be derived from earthquakes with casualties of more than 100 that hit Taiwan in the 20th century.
For instance, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit the Meishan area in 1906, just two years after the Douliou earthquake of a similar magnitude.
In 1935, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Hsinchu-Taichung area that was followed by a strong quake in Chungpu, Chiayi County in 1941, a Hsinhua earthquake in 1946 and a Chiayi-Tainan earthquake in 1964.
Taiwan was rocked by temblors of a magnitude 7 or above two times in the last decade of the 20th century, in 1996 and 1999. Another hit Taiwan in 2004, but only the 1999 quake took a heavy toll on human life and property as the other two struck at sea well off Taiwan's coast.