番薯翻硕开通“外刊精读”专刊，帮助大家更好地备考，每周三、周五更新，各位备考MTI专业的小伙伴一起学习起来吧。 位于亚洲腹地的阿富汗，是一个近代史上多灾多难的国家，被称为“帝国坟场”。在塔利班接管阿富汗后，旱灾、贫困等问题愈发突出，新冠疫情更是让阿富汗的情形雪上加霜。今年6月，阿富汗突发地震，让我们跟随经济学人一起看看现状如何。
原文导读Another disaster
Afghans were already being tormented by hunger, poverty and the aftermath of war when, in the early hours of June 22nd, disaster struck once more. A 5.9- magnitude earthquake centred in the south-eastern province of Khost, on the border with Pakistan, destroyed homes and triggered landslides in Khost and neighbouring Paktika as people slept. When dawn broke, pictures showed villages reduced to rubble or demolished by torrents of shifting earth. Residents sifted through piles of crumbled masonry and began digging graves.
The speed with which the reported death toll rose, even in an are a with few communication links, is a sign of how deadly the tremor may have been. Within hours the state news agency had put the number of victims at over1,000, with a further 1,500 injured. Those figures were expected to rise further, making the quake the country’s deadliest in recent decades. “People are digging grave after grave,” said Mohammad Amin Huzaifa, head of Paktika’s information and culture department. “It is raining also, and all houses are destroyed. People are still trapped under the rubble,” he added.
The earthquake has hit a country in crisis. Drought, war and covid-19 had already left most Afghansdestitute. When the Taliban took power last summer, foreign aid stopped overnight. Sanctions against its leadership halted bank transfers and paralysed commerce. Aid agencies have spent the past six months trying to save millions of people from starvation while ensuring their money does not flow into the Taliban's coffers.
The disaster will test the Taliban’s capacity to govern. The former insurgents have taken over a state. But foreign officials in Kabul who meet them say that they struggle to run it. Taliban administrators have expressed shock at the size of the governing apparatus they have taken on. Many appear to be feeling their way around it, without much sense of what to do. “We don’t have anything resembling governance here; we have a few ministries that do their own thing,” says one foreign official. Big jobs in the administration are allocated by loyalty and seniority rather than competence. Technocrats have been replaced by fighters and clerics.
The Taliban have published a budget, and claim that Afghanistan is economically self-sufficient. But victims of the earthquake have yet to receive much help. Emergency and disaster-management teams are handicapped by a lack of airworthy planes and helicopters. Aware of their own limitations, the Taliban have called for foreign assistance. Charities and un agencies that have been feeding Afghans and running hospitals have swung into action. But for many of those whose homes have been obliterated, help will come too late.
第一段：Afghans were already being tormented by hunger, poverty and the aftermath of war when, in the early hours of June 22nd, disaster struck once more. A 5.9- magnitude earthquake centred in the south-eastern province of Khost, on the border with Pakistan, destroyed homes and triggered landslides in Khost and neighbouring Paktika as people slept. When dawn broke, pictures showed villages reduced to rubble or demolished by torrents of shifting earth. Residents sifted through piles of crumbled masonry and began digging graves.
推荐译文：6月22日凌晨，灾难再次降临饱受饥饿、贫困和战争后果折磨的阿富汗。一场震级为5.9级的地震集中发生在与巴基斯坦接壤的东南部霍斯特省，在人们仍在睡梦中时摧毁了霍斯特和邻近的帕克提卡的房屋，并引发了山体滑坡。破晓时，照片显示村庄要么变成了瓦砾，要么被倾泻而下的巨流所摧毁。居民们在一堆堆破碎的砖石中挑选，开始挖掘坟墓。
知识点解读：
1.Aftermath：后果，尤其是指自然灾害过后残留的结果，例如，“In the aftermath of the hurricane, many people's homes were destroyed.飓风的后果是许多人的房屋被毁。”
2.struck：strike的过去式，在自然灾害中常表达“袭击、来袭”的意思，例如，“Even in the summertime we might be struck by blizzards.甚至在夏天,我们也可能受到暴风雪的袭击。”
3.Magnitude：普通用词为“巨大、重要程度”的意思，在灾害中意为“地震的震级”，例如，“earthquake magnitude 地震震级”。
4.Landslide：山体滑坡
5.dawn broke：破晓
6.be reduced to:被迫沦为，例如，“We were reduced to rely on naked diplomacy .我们已沦落到了只能依靠纯外交办事的地步。”
7.Demolish：彻底毁坏，例如，“Even if you see tornadoes only in movies, you know that they demolish building in second.即使你只是在电影中看到龙卷风，你知道它会在几秒之内破坏建筑。”
8.torrents of：形容流体的汹涌，如云、雨、水、浪等，例如，“As I returned home, great black clouds came up and there was a terrific storm with torrents of rain.回到家里，突然之间乌云密布，一场可怕的风暴挟着倾盆大雨袭来。”
第二段：The speed with which the reported death toll rose, even in an are a with few communication links, is a sign of how deadly the tremor may have been. Within hours the state news agency had put the number of victims at over1,000, with a further 1,500 injured. Those figures were expected to rise further, making the quake the country’s deadliest in recent decades. “People are digging grave after grave,” said Mohammad Amin Huzaifa, head of Paktika’s information and culture department. “It is raining also, and all houses are destroyed. People are still trapped under the rubble,” he added.
推荐译文：哪怕在一个几乎没有通信联系的地区，报道的死亡人数上升速度也表明了这次地震的致命性。几小时内，国家通讯社公布的受害者人数超过1000人，另有1500人受伤。预计这些数字还会进一步上升，这次地震成为近几十年来死亡人数最多的一次。帕克蒂卡信息和文化部部长穆罕默德·阿明·胡扎伊法说：“人们正在一个接一个地挖掘坟墓”。他接着补充，“天还在下雨，所有的房子都被毁了，人们仍被困在废墟下”。
知识点解读：
1.death toll：死亡人数，用于特地场合，例如意外、战争、灾难等，普通的死亡人数不能用这个词，例如，“Three people who were injured in the accident have died, pushing the death toll up to 116. 在事故中受伤的三人已经死亡，使死亡人数上升到116人。”
2.Tremor：小地震，例如，“The tremor was felt as far as 200 miles away. 200英里外就有震感。”大规模的地震一般用“earthquake”,例如，“The town was destroyed by the earthquake.这个小镇被地震毁了。”这里我们归类下各种自然灾害的英文表达：
aftershock余震； tsunami海啸； avalanche雪崩； mudslide泥石流； landslide山体滑坡； drought干旱； famine饥荒； flood洪水； blizzard暴风雪； typhoon台风； hurricane飓风； tornado龙卷风；
3.trap：受困，也可以指代圈套，例如，“set a trap 设陷阱”，经济学上常说的“贫困陷阱”就是指“poverty trap”,例句则有，“She was trapped in the burning house.她被困在燃烧着的房子里了。”
4.rubble：碎石，瓦砾，尤其是指建筑物坍塌后破败的那种瓦砾堆，例如，“They’re working against the clock to try and get people out of the rubble alive.他们抓紧一切时间努力把人们活着从瓦砾里救出来。”
第三段：The earthquake has hit a country in crisis. Drought, war and covid-19 had already left most Afghansdestitute. When the Taliban took power last summer, foreign aid stopped overnight. Sanctions against its leadership halted bank transfers and paralysed commerce. Aid agencies have spent the past six months trying to save millions of people from starvation while ensuring their money does not flow into the Taliban's coffers.
推荐译文：地震袭击了这个本就处于危机中的国家。干旱、战争和新冠肺炎已经使大多数阿富汗人一贫如洗。去年夏天塔利班掌权时，外国在一夜之间停止了援助。而对其领导层的制裁阻碍了银行转账，并使商业陷入瘫痪。在过去的六个月里，援助机构一直在努力拯救数百万人，让他们免于饥饿，同时确保他们的资金不会流入塔利班的金库。
知识点解读：
1.Drought：干旱
2.Destitute：赤贫的，例如，“They denied any intentional wrongdoing, saying they were only trying to help orphans left destitute by the quake.他们否认有任何不良企图，并说，他们仅仅是想帮助这些地震中的孤儿摆脱贫困。”这个词形容地方时意为“荒无人烟的，人迹罕至的”，例如“It is needless to add that this forest, as well as the coast already surveyed, was destitute of any sign of human life.不用说，这片森林和他们已经视察过的海岸一样，都是人迹没有到过的地方。”
3.overnight：突然之间，一夜之间，常常用来表示突然发生了某些巨大的改变，例如，“Tom became an overnight celebrity.汤姆一夜之间成了名人。”
4.Halt:阻止，例如，“That led to a quick thaw in these markets, where a week earlier trade had almost ground to a halt.一周前这三个市场的交易几乎停滞，这笔资金使这三个市场迅速回暖。”
5.starvation：挨饿，饿死，例如，“He said he was a loyal subject but all that changed when his father and mother died of starvation during the famine in the 90s.他说他曾经是个忠诚的子民，但当他的父母死于90年代那场饥荒之后一切都变了。”
第四段：The disaster will test the Taliban’s capacity to govern. The former insurgents have taken over a state. But foreign officials in Kabul who meet them say that they struggle to run it. Taliban administrators have expressed shock at the size of the governing apparatus they have taken on. Many appear to be feeling their way around it, without much sense of what to do. “We don’t have anything resembling governance here; we have a few ministries that do their own thing,” says one foreign official. Big jobs in the administration are allocated by loyalty and seniority rather than competence. Technocrats have been replaced by fighters and clerics.
推荐译文：这场灾难将考验塔利班的执政能力。前叛乱分子已经接管了一个州。但是在喀布尔会见他们的外国官员说，他们很难管理阿富汗。塔利班行政人员对他们所接管的管理机构的规模表示震惊。许多人似乎在摸索着解决这个问题，却毫无头绪。一位外国官员表示：“我们这里没有类似的治理；我们有几个部门自己做自己的事情。”。政府中的重要职位是根据忠诚度和资历而不是能力来分配的。技术官僚已被战士和神职人员所取代。
知识点解读：
1.insurgent：叛乱者，例如，“Pakistan army gunship helicopters relentlessly pounded insurgent positions since the clashes broke out in the border region a week ago.自从冲突在一星期前爆发以来，巴基斯坦军队的武装直升机一直在对暴乱分子活动地点进行无情的打击。”
2.Resemble：相似，尤其是指人长得像，例如，“Oh, now that I look a little closer, I can see that you resemble your father. You're a chip off the old block.哦，现在近看的话，我觉得你长得很像你爸爸。你们简直是一个模子里刻出来的。”
3.Big job:重要职务，非常地道的表达，中式英语中常把“重要职位”翻译成“important position”，也没错，只是没有那么地道。
4.Allocate：分配，要指金钱、财产、权力或领土等的分配，用于专业用途，常见的用法有“allocate funds 拨款”，例如，“They allocated funds for the new school.他们拨出专款修建这所新学校。”我们要注意区分几个同样表达“分配”意思的词：
Distribute：通常指以整体或定量分为若干份来分配。 Assign：指按照某种原则进行的硬性分配。 Divide：普通用词，含平均分配之意。
5.loyalty：忠实，另一个长得很像的单词“royalty”是“皇室”，不要混淆。
6.seniority：在经济上特指“资历、工龄”，例如，“Example: The company adopts an across-the-board policy on employees' annual outing, regardless of their positions or seniority.公司采取一视同仁的员工年度郊游政策，不管职位或资历如何。”
第五段：The Taliban have published a budget, and claim that Afghanistan is economically self-sufficient. But victims of the earthquake have yet to receive much help. Emergency and disaster-management teams are handicapped by a lack of airworthy planes and helicopters. Aware of their own limitations, the Taliban have called for foreign assistance. Charities and un agencies that have been feeding Afghans and running hospitals have swung into action. But for many of those whose homes have been obliterated, help will come too late.
推荐译文：塔利班已经公布了一份预算，并声称阿富汗在经济上自给自足。但是地震的受害者还没有得到太多的帮助。由于缺乏适航飞机和直升机，应急和灾害管理团队受到阻碍。塔利班意识到自己的局限性，呼吁外国援助。一直为阿富汗人提供食物和经营医院的慈善机构和联合国机构已经开始行动。但对于许多房屋被毁的人来说，援助来得太晚了。
知识点解读：
1.handicap：阻碍、妨碍，例如，“If I said that being black is a greater handicap than being a woman,probably no one would question me.如果我说黑人比女人更处于不利地位，也许不会有人对我提出质问。”
2.Airworthy: 适航的,例如，“The birds that aren't quite airworthy have to plunk down in the gentle surf where tiger sharks are waiting for them.那些不太耐飞的鸟不得不落在有虎鲨等候的轻缓海浪里。”
3.call for：请求、号召、要求，例如，“
4.This week Chinese spokesmen called for restraint in responding to the protests. Their pleas seem to be falling on deaf ears.本周中国政府发言人多次呼吁缅甸对那些示威游行保持克制，但看上去缅甸并未理睬这个呼吁。”
5.swing into action：迅速采取行动，是非常地道形象的表达，例如，“In fact, many enterprises have swing into action, trying to share a piece of cake in the online shopping market.事实上，很多企业已经积极行动起来，试图在网购市场上分到一块蛋糕。”
6.Obliterate：毁坏、抹杀，例如，“As a mixed-race child, she grew up as one of Australia's “stolen generations” ordered to obliterate her aboriginal heritage.作为一名混血儿，她的成长伴随着“被偷窃的一代”的称号，剥夺了她的土著遗产。”
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