英国新闻听力 哈萨克斯坦小村庄盛行昏睡症

For the past two years, residents of a small village in Kazakhstan are suffering from a mysterious and quite serious affliction.

在过去的两年中，哈萨克斯坦一个小村庄的村民们都染上了一种不可思议又相当严重的病，人们都叫它昏睡症。

It's been dubbed¹ the sleeping sickness and it is just that out of the blue residents of Kalachi fall into a deep slumber², sometimes lasting³ for days.

卡拉奇的居民会特别突然地陷入深度睡眠状态，这种状态有时会延续好几天。

And when they come to, they often suffer from headaches, dizziness and memory loss.

而当他们醒过来的时候，会经常头疼、眩晕和失忆。

Health experts have conducted numerous tests on the surrounding air and soil but so far they are at a loss to explain the phenomenon.

健康专家对周围的空气和土壤进行了多次试验，但迄今为止仍无法解释这种现象。

The mayor of Kalachi has been encouraging people to move out of the village for good.

卡拉奇的市长一直在鼓励居民永久性地迁出村庄。

It looks quite strange as a matter of fact because it's a very remote area which is very barren.

其实这种病的发生确实很奇怪，因为发病的地区十分偏远和贫瘠。

Rising out of this area, there is an abandoned, a small abandoned town.

这个地区里面有一个荒芜的……荒芜的小镇。

And right next to this mostly abandoned town there is a small village which is the place where the sleeping sickness as it's been dubbed has struck.

而紧挨着这个大部分荒芜的城镇，有一个小村庄，这就是人们所谓的昏睡症的发病区。

And that's a very tidy, neat and tidy, quite picturesque⁴, in fact, Kazakh village.

事实上，这个哈萨克村庄非常整洁，干净整洁，风景如画。

And that's where the victims live.

而受疾病困扰的人们就生活在这里。

Has any connection been made between these blackouts, in effect long-term blackouts that people are suffering, and some kind of radioactive poisoning?

有没有证据证明这种短暂的昏迷——其实是长期的昏迷——和某种放射性中毒有关？

The connection has been made, but in no way proven.

这种关联是存在的，但没有得到证明。

The scientists are completely baffled by the cause of it.

发病原因令科学家们非常困惑。

Scientists have detected some elevated levels of radiation in the area but they do say that they are not above permissible⁵ levels.

他们检测到这个地区所受的一些辐射程度要高于其他地区，但又明确表示辐射程度并未超过允许数值。

And there are other questions that are raised.

还有一些问题被提了出来。

If it's the radiation that causes the affliction, why is it that miners who used to mine the mine in Soviet⁶ times were not affected⁷?

例如，如果疾病是由辐射造成的，那为什么在苏联时期当地的矿工没有受到影响？

And why is it that it's about twenty years now since the mine was abandoned and only all of a sudden, people are being struck by the sickness in the last two years?

又为什么矿井废弃了大约20年，人们突然在近两年得了这种病？

And what's been happening to people?

村民们有什么症状？

They simply blackout in the most extreme forms of the sickness.

他们的症状十分极端。

They blackout for several days and they simply just don't come to.

通常会昏迷好几天，就是醒不过来。

They are suffering all kinds of affects such as dizziness, memory loss, and the most visible affect that we can see is that people simply fall asleep.

还有各种后遗症，如眩晕、失忆，可以看到的最明显的症状是人们突然就睡着了。

For example, one victim who I spoke⁸ to was riding his motorcycle and he simply blacked out and came to several days later in hospital with no memory of what had happened.

比方说，上次有个病人跟我说，他正骑着摩托车就突然睡着了，几天后在医院里苏醒，完全不记得发生了什么。

And in fact, this was the second time this had happened to him.

其实，这是他第二次犯病了。

And this has affected around 120 people in the village, some of them more than once,

村上120口人都被这种病困扰，有些人还不止一次发病，

and that's about a quarter of the population as it stands at the moment.

目前发病人数占全村人口的四分之一。

And the man who fell off his motorbike had his wife on the pillion, as well.

从摩托车上摔下的那名男子，当时他老婆还坐在后座上。

1 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 slumber   

n.睡眠，沉睡状态

参考例句：

• All the people in the hotels were wrapped in deep slumber.住在各旅馆里的人都已进入梦乡。
• Don't wake him from his slumber because he needs the rest.不要把他从睡眠中唤醒，因为他需要休息。

3 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

4 picturesque   

adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的

参考例句：

• You can see the picturesque shores beside the river.在河边你可以看到景色如画的两岸。
• That was a picturesque phrase.那是一个形象化的说法。

5 permissible   

adj.可允许的，许可的

参考例句：

• Is smoking permissible in the theatre?在剧院里允许吸烟吗？
• Delay is not permissible,even for a single day.不得延误，即使一日亦不可。

6 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

7 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。

8 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。