纪录片《为何无法预测地震》 第20期:预测地震

Predicting the size of an earthquake is essential.

预测地震的规模是至关重要的

Millions of quakes happen all over the world each year,

每年 世界上都有数百万地震发生

but the vast majority are too weak even to be felt.

但大部分地震都很微弱 甚至无法察觉

The real challenge for science

对于科学界的真正挑战

is to work out when one of these little earthquakes

在于计算出这些小地震

is going to develop into a major disaster.

发展成为大灾难的时刻

You don't want me to predict every earthquake,

人们不需要我们对每一个地震都作出预测

there's going to be 50

今天在加利福利亚州发生的地震

in California today.

也许就有50次

You want me to predict

人们需要我预测的是

which of the 35,000 we record each year

在我们每年记录的三万五千个地震

is the one or two large enough to do some damage,

有哪一两个是大到足以造成破坏的

and really, what we want to do

我们希望去做的

is really predict just the one that happens

也正是对那些5年或10年才发生一次的

every five or ten years that does a lot of damage.

具有破坏性的地震作出预测

Live, Los Angeles tonight,

直击今晚洛城地震现场

battered¹ and bracing² for the worst.

并作好了最坏的准备

The last earthquake to do a lot of damage in California

加利福利亚州最近的一次破坏性地震

stuck in Northridge, a suburb of Los Angles,

发生在洛杉矶的一个郊区 北岭

in January 1994.

发生于1994年1月

Measuring magnitude 6.7,

震级6.7级

it killed 72 people and caused over $20 billion in damage,

72人死亡 损失超过200亿美元

making it one of the costliest³ natural disasters in US history.

是美国历史上造成经济损失最大的自然灾害

The earth is literally⁴ split here.

看起来地面在这里断裂

The city wakes up to a nightmare.

城市被惊醒 遭遇噩梦般打击

But one man saw it coming.

然而 有人预测到了它的到来

1 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

2 bracing   

adj.令人振奋的

参考例句：

• The country is bracing itself for the threatened enemy invasion. 这个国家正准备奋起抵抗敌人的入侵威胁。
• The atmosphere in the new government was bracing. 新政府的气氛是令人振奋的。

3 costliest   

adj.昂贵的( costly的最高级 )；代价高的；引起困难的；造成损失的

参考例句：

• At 81 billion dollars, Katrina is the costliest natural disaster in American history. “卡特里娜”飓风造成了近810亿美圆的损失，是美国历史上最严重的自然灾难之一。 来自互联网
• Senator John Kerry has proposed a tax on the costliest health plans sold by insurance companies. 参议员约翰？克里(JohnKerry)已经提议对保险公司销售的高价值的保险计划征税。 来自互联网

4 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。