印度南部洪水肆虐 近300人死亡

AS IT IS 2015-12-07 Nearly 300 Killed in Floods in Southern India 印度南部洪水肆虐 近300人死亡

As world leaders gathered in France this week to talk about climate change, the residents of a city in southern India are enduring the worst rains in more than 100 years.

Chennai received 330 millimeters of rain in 24 hours. According to one government official, that is about 50 percent more rain than the city receives on average in the entire month of December.

While the rain let up Thursday, local meteorologists are calling for more rain this weekend.

Thousands of people are stranded² on rooftops, forced from their homes or awaiting flights at closed airports.

Over 4 million people live in Chennai and many are without power because of the rain.

Military, police and disaster teams are working to rescue people stranded in flooded areas. The Air Force is using helicopters to deliver food aid.

The heavy rains started in November, and so far, 269 people have died.

The months of October, November and December are always rainy in southern India, but meteorologists say the extreme rain is related to a low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal.

The country’s environment minister says he is not able to directly connect the freak rainfall to climate change.

But climate experts say rising global temperatures cause more intense rains than normal.

The rain came the same week India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke³ at the COP21 Climate Change conference in France.

On Monday, Modi talked about the need for richer, more industrialized countries to compensate⁴ poorer countries for affecting the world’s climate.

Modi is talking about the idea, for example, that emissions⁵ from a coal-burning power plant in one country can affect the climate in a country thousands of miles away.

One environment expert in New Dehli says India suffered economic losses of $25 billion to $30 billion due to extreme weather in the last five years.

Modi returned to India on Thursday to survey the damage.

Words in This Story

await – v. to wait for (someone or something)

emissions – n. the act of producing or sending out something (such as energy or gas) from a source

endure – v. to deal with or accept (something unpleasant)

strand¹ – v. to leave (a person or animal) in a place without a way of leaving it — usually used as (be) stranded

1 strand   

vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地）

参考例句：

• She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears.她把一缕散发夹到了耳后。
• The climbers had been stranded by a storm.登山者被暴风雨困住了。

2 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

5 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。