BEIJING — A strong earthquake hit a remote part of western China overnight killing at least 118 people and injuring more than 200, the state news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday.

The tremblor hit Jishishan County, in the southwestern part of Gansu province near the border with Qinghai province —     1    mountainous region populated, in part, by members of the Tibetan, Hui, Dongxiang and Salar ethnic groups.

Xinhua said the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.2.     2    the dead, 100 were in Gansu and another 11 in Qinghai. The quake damaged water, electricity, transport, communications and other infrastructure (基础设施) in the area, it said. Chinese leader Xi Jinping quickly called for all-out efforts in search and rescue and    3     (treat) the injured. He also urged the hasty deployment of relief materials and infrastructure    4    (repair) , because the area is at high altitude and the winter weather is cold.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.9,     5     reported several aftershocks. Rescue teams told Chinese media that frozen roads made driving into the towns and villages in Jishishan county, the area most    6    (affect) difficult. It’s a area inhabited by numerous ethnic minority groups, including Tibetans and Salars. Rescuers are now working in average temperatures of about 14 degrees Fahrenheit, well below    7     (freeze).

About 10 hours later,     8     (far) west, a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in the Xinjiang region     9    (strike) near China’s border with Kygyzstan. The earthquake happened in a remote area. So far, no casualties or building damage    10    (report).

This year, August 15th marked China’s first National Ecology Day,    1    aims to raise awareness of environmental protection and address unlawful activities and safeguard the development of forestry and grassland resource    2    law.

The establishment of National Ecology Day will enhance ecological understanding among the public and help the nation    3    (well) participate in global environment and climate governance.

The move     4    (see) as part of China’s efforts to build an ecological civilization, a concept that glorifies balanced and sustainable development and harmonious coexistence between    5    (human) and nature    6    promotes the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

China’s laws and administrative regulations    7    (involve) the environment and ecology,    8    (base) on what environmental difficulties villagers are eager to solve and what ecological measures should be taken urgently from their opinions, have laid a solid legislative (立法的) foundation for the ecological civilization.

    9    makes Aug. 15 special is that on that day in 2005, the concept of “lucid waters and lush mountains” was first put forward, being    10    (value) assets.

Oysters, soft-bodied animals without skeletons, are important for the underwater community they share with plants, fish, and other life. They are food     1     crabs and other animals. As new oysters grow, they attach their shells to older ones,     2     (form) bigger reefs with many small spaces     3     other animals live. Oysters eat algae (藻类). If algae grow too fast, they can exhaust oxygen from the water—and even fish need oxygen     4     (breath)!

Because so many animals depend on them, oysters are called a keystone species. If a keystone species     5    (disappear), other plants and animals may die off and not grow back.

That’s     6     (exact) what happened 100 years ago in New York Harbor—a group of rivers and bays around New York City. Before then, lots of oysters lived in these waters. The oysters were famous! They     7     (ship) to restaurants around the world. The oysters were delicious—maybe too delicious. By the early 1900s, people were eating them faster than they could grow.

The oysters were in trouble for     8     reason. Pollution was pouring into the waters of the growing city. The harbor became so     9     (pollute) that few types of animals could live in it. Since the 1970s, new laws     10     (help) reduce toxic waste. Some fish started to swim through again. But oysters were still missing—until recently.

The day starts early for Shi Xiaogang, a wildlife ranger (护林员) at the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Southwest China’s Sichuan province. He monitors the population of giant pandas and conducts long-range patrols (巡逻) in some of the most extreme environments,     1     is a challenging and, often, dangerous job.

    2     (cover) about 200,000 hectares, Wolong National Nature Reserve is home to one of the largest remaining giant panda populations in China. Thanks to the rangers’ like Shi’s efforts,     3     number of wild giant pandas in the reserve has increased from 104, in 2015, to 149 today. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature     4     (announce) that the giant panda’s status had been changed from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on its Red List of Threatened Species.

As well as “the home of giant pandas”, the reserve is     5     (wide) known as a “bio-gene bank”. It features a great number of threatened species of plants and animals, including other famous     6     (creature), such as the red panda, snow leopard and clouded leopard among the 121 species of mammals (哺乳动物)     7     (record). There are also 392 bird species.

To mark the rangers’ hard work and contribution to wildlife     8     (protect) in the reserve, last year, 20 rangers     9     (recognize) with special commendations (表扬) at an online award ceremony for the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas’ International Ranger Awards.

The commission speaks highly of their work, saying that they help stop biodiversity loss and protect the important ecosystems that serve     10     natural solutions to climate change and other global challenges.

About 385, 000 people from 192 countries take part in the yearly project to count birds. The event    1    (launch)for the first time 25 years ago.

Steve and Janet Kistler from the American state of Kentucky are among those     2    (involve) themselves in it. They’ve done so every year    3    the now-international tradition started in 1998. For Moira Dalibor,     4     schoolteacher from nearby Lexington, this is her first event. She’s leading a group of students and parents to a garden     5    (collect) data.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish,    6    works at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York, is the project’s leader. The Lab organizes the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) along with the National Audubon Society and Birds Canada. “Every year we see increased participation, and 2022 was a big jump,” Becca said. In India, which had the     7    (high) participation outside the US last year, tens of thousands of people submitted bird checklists.

The worldwide data goes into the eBird database used by scientists for research on different bird     8    (population). The GBBC is part of a rise in “citizen science" projects in which volunteers collect data about the    9    (nature) world for use by researchers. The information helps researchers track the numbers of different kinds of birds, which then helps with their     10    (protect).

Rising sea levels are threatening coastlines in China, for example in     1     (city) such as Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangzhou. If sea levels rise by one meter, more than 92,000 square kilometers of China’s coast could be flooded. This could potentially force 67 million people     2     (move) away. Almost two-thirds of the ice in Asia’s glaciers (冰川) could disappear if average global temperature rises beyond 1.5℃ by the end of the century. If that happens, the impacts     3     China will be felt in multiple areas, from water availability, to agriculture, and to biodiversity.

The good news is     4     China is becoming a global leader on climate action. For example, over the last five years, China     5     (use) more solar and wind energy than any other country in the world. China is also the largest clean energy investor in the world —     6     (spend) some $130 billion in new energy in recent years.

The development of electric vehicles is particularly     7     (inspire) in China. More than 50 percent of electric vehicles in the world     8     (sell) in China every year. And China is now a world leader in the     9     (promote) of clean energy technologies.

Ecological civilization has become the cornerstone (基石) of China’s long-term development strategy, much like climate action is     10     important part of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.