VOA标准英语2010年-Arriving Port-au-Prince, Earthquake Da

As rescue operations accelerated to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti, correspondent Brian Wagner flew into Port-au-Prince Wednesday to begin covering the story for VOA.    He did not have to travel far to give a detailed¹ account of the devastation², which damaged the city's airport.  Here are his first impressions of the severe impact of the earthquake:
 
Our small plane landed in Port-au-Prince shortly before twilight³.  Getting into Haiti has been extremely difficult because there has been a lot of confusion about whether the airport here in Port-Au-Prince is operational.

Several people told us that only planes carrying humanitarian⁴ aid, doctors, supplies or journalists were allowed to enter the country.

From the air as we approached Port-au-Prince, we could see buildings damaged.  Around some blocks of houses we could see large piles of concrete debris⁵ which we assume was gathered after the earthquake and set aside.

Here at the airport, you can see there is significant damage to the airport terminal--large cracks to the facade⁶, inside some of the ceiling is torn, ripped away.  Water pipes have broken, it is completely not operational.

There are a number of crews and planes from countries--Brazil, the United States, Canada, Iceland.
 
Here at the airport there are also a number of people trying to leave.  I talked to one student, Vadim Stafanyek, who is with a religious mission group trying to get out of the country.  He said he was traveling in a truck when the quake hit on Tuesday.

"I heard things crashing, I heard things falling. There was a three story building in front of us that collapsed⁷  and a three story building behind of us that collapsed, and then our guys jumped up on the roof of one building to try to help one of the guys to pull a woman out, who could not get her out, then we saw a couple of people bring a ladder to one of the floors to get people out.

When we walked back to the pastor's house... there were bodies lying on the road, there was one woman holding a baby, I mean quite a lot of bodies, a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, a lot of people confused on what to do with the roads, a lot of roads got blocked off," the student said.

As the night falls here in Port-au-Prince we can see that there are still large parts of the city without any electricity. Many people say it is very dangerous to leave the airport area because of the lack of electricity and rubble⁸ still in the streets.

 

1 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

2 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

4 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

5 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

6 facade   

n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表

参考例句：

• The entrance facade consists of a large full height glass door.入口正面有一大型全高度玻璃门。
• If you look carefully,you can see through Bob's facade.如果你仔细观察，你就能看穿鲍勃的外表。

7 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

8 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。