VOA新闻杂志2022--城市采矿将巴西社区变成了鬼城

Urban Mining Empties Brazil Neighborhood

In northeastern Brazil, the capital of Alagoas state used to be filled with the sounds of busy city life: cars and buses going to places of business, people enjoying daily life, and children playing.

But now, the capital Maceio is quiet.

Most residents have been evacuated². They have left because their now empty houses are falling apart and face destruction.

Beneath their floors, the ground is filled with empty spaces from four decades of rock salt mining in urban neighborhoods. That caused the soil above to settle and the structures atop the soil to start coming apart.

Since 2020, tens of thousands of residents accepted payments to leave the area from petrochemical company Braskem.

But some residents remain in Maceio. Some told the Associated Press they imagine the ground under their feet to look like "Swiss cheese," meaning full of holes.

Still, Paulo Sergio Doe said he will never leave his home in the Pinheiro neighborhood. It is where he grew up.

"The company cannot (can't) impose what it wants overnight to do away with the lives and histories of so many families," the 51-year-old resident said in an interview outside his home.

Braskem is one of the biggest petrochemical companies in the Americas. It is owned mostly by Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras and construction giant Novonor.

The company is not forcibly evicting⁴ anyone. But those remaining in Maceio said it feels that way. Braskem reached an agreement with prosecutors⁵ and public defenders⁷ to compensate⁸ families. This money was to help them relocate and start their lives over elsewhere. By the company's count, 97.4 percent of affected⁹ homes — more than 14,000 — are now empty.

The 55,000 evacuees¹⁰ left behind not just neighbors and friends, but also jobs. Last year the Federal University of Alagoas published a study. It found that 4,500 mostly small- and medium-sized businesses were closed. These businesses employed an estimated 30,000 people.

Among those businesses were local food markets and a ballet school that had operated for 38 years, said to Adriana Capretz. She is part of the university's work group that keeps details on the neighborhoods.

The emptiness of the city is clear from above. The residents who left sold everything they could for extra money. This included the roofing material of their homes. Without the roof tiles, from above you can see clearly inside the once-lived-in houses.

The amount of money Braskem offered to compensate 77-year-old retired¹¹ teacher Natalícia Gonçalves is not enough. She said she was too old to start over somewhere else. So, she watched as everyone in Pinheiro left her.

Now she lives inside a homemade shelter behind boards and plants. These are aimed at preventing would-be thieves. Braskem security guards patrol the city on motorcycles at night. This briefly¹² breaks the city's strange silence.

"They've already done everything to force me to go, but I have my rights," she said from behind her home's protected outside barrier. She said she is especially afraid at night when no one is around and there is not much light. "I protect myself with my plants," she said, "but I'm alone, with God."

As of yet, no house has been swallowed by the earth, nor has anyone been killed by a collapse¹³. However, Capretz, a professor in the university's architecture and urbanism school, said that does not mean this is not a tragedy.

She explained that many people have become sick with depression. Some residents have killed themselves. Many have "... lost their social lives, family ties, friends and neighbors," Capretz said as she walked through the Bebedouro neighborhood. "None of that is being considered by Braskem."

Sitting at a table beneath the light of the street's only working lamppost, 64-year-old Quitéria Maria da Silva and her grandson wait for the rest of their family to play a game of dominos.

Even as da Silva said she would move were Braskem to pay her requested amount, she is left with a big question: "I always lived in my house and now, if I have to leave here, where will I go?"

The company's press office said in a lengthy¹⁴ response to AP questions that it provides free mental health services to any resident in the compensation and relocation program. It said the program was created based on law and legal rulings in similar cases. The company added that compensation offers are always presented to individuals alongside their lawyer or a public defender⁶.

But these offers can be made more complex by intense feelings. The price of a house is not the same as the value of a home.

Words in This Story

evacuate¹ - v. to leave or cause to leave a place of danger

resident - n. living in a place for some length of time

impose - v. to establish or apply by authority

evict³ - v. to recover (property) from a person by legal process

compensate - v. to give money to make up for something

relocate - v. establish in a new place

thief - n. one that steals especially stealthily or secretly

patrol - v. the action of going around an area to make sure that it is safe

1 evacuate   

v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便

参考例句：

• We must evacuate those soldiers at once!我们必须立即撤出这些士兵！
• They were planning to evacuate the seventy American officials still in the country.他们正计划转移仍滞留在该国的70名美国官员。

2 evacuated   

撤退者的

参考例句：

• Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
• The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。

3 evict   

vt.驱逐，赶出，撵走

参考例句：

• The lessor can evict the lessee for failure to pay rent.出租人可驱逐不付租金的承租人。
• The government always says it's for the greater good when they evict farmers from their land.当政府把农民从他们的土地赶出去的时候，总是号称是为了更大众的利益。

4 evicting   

v.（依法从房屋里或土地上）驱逐，赶出( evict的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Money spent on evicting sex offenders cannot be spent on treating them. 花在打击性侵犯者上的钱并不能花在治疗这一社会问题上。 来自互联网
• Money spent on evicting sex offenders cannot be spent on treating them. Does this matter? 钱被花费在驱逐性犯罪者而不是用做教育他们，这样做真的好么？ 来自互联网

5 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

6 defender   

n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人

参考例句：

• He shouldered off a defender and shot at goal.他用肩膀挡开防守队员，然后射门。
• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。

7 defenders   

n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者

参考例句：

• The defenders were outnumbered and had to give in. 抵抗者寡不敌众，只能投降。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After hard fighting,the defenders were still masters of the city. 守军经过奋战仍然控制着城市。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 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。

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 evacuees   

n.被疏散者( evacuee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Moreover, for multi-exits, evacuees select a exit based on game theory. 在有多个出口时，疏散人员根据对策论选择出口。 来自互联网
• Evacuees wade through flooded area following heavy monsoon rains in Peshawar on Saturday, July 31, 2010. 撤离灾区涉水通过后在白沙瓦沉重的季风降雨在周六，2010年7月31日。 来自互联网

11 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

12 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

13 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

14 lengthy   

adj.漫长的，冗长的

参考例句：

• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
• The professor wrote a lengthy book on Napoleon.教授写了一部有关拿破仑的巨著。