It can be solid or liquid. It can burn you or freeze you. It kills thousands of people each year, yet children are allowed to play with it every day. The substance can change its shape. It has no colour , smell or taste and we drink large quantities of it every day. What is it?
It’s water, of course! Water is everywhere. A large percentage of earth’s surface (almost 71%) is covered by it, in the form of rivers, lakes, seas and oceans. A potato is 80% water, a tomato is 95%, a cow is 74% and even humans are 65% water.
Water falls from the sky as rain and helps farmer grow food to keep us alive. But if there is heavy rainfall for a long period, there may be floods, which damage the plants the fields. Floods kill people, too.
A tsunami is a very large wave in the sea. Tsunamis don’t happen very often, but when they do, the result can be terrible. Do you remember the Asian tsunami which happened on boxing day in 2004? More than 200,000 people died in countries around the indian ocean when a wave as a coconut tree hit the coastal areas.
We can’t live without water, but sometimes we can’t live with it.