Hello Calvin, The first sentence doesn't sound very natural, it is using destroyed as an adjective so it is describing the current state of the town. The second sentence is far more natural. It is using the present perfect tense to tell us about an action/event in the past with an effect/result in the present. We are talking about an earthquake that took place at some time in the past and the effect/result is that the town is now damaged. They have used the passive form of the present perfect because the town (receiving the action) is positioned in front of the verb for effect. As soon as you fix the action at a point in time then you should use the regular past simple passive. 'The town was destroyed by an earthquake this morning.' Hope this helps Bob