丁晓钟 - 2008-5-22 18:54:00
OPINION
An Unnecessary Tragedy
一场本不该发生的悲剧
By COSTAS SYNOLAKIS
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
May 14, 2008
The massive earthquake that hit central China Monday is the second natural disaster to hit Asia within a week. Unlike the cyclone that hit Burma, however -- whose trail of destruction could have been mitigated had a warning system been in place -- China's tremor, which measured magnitude 7.9, wouldn't have been helped by such a system. Earthquake prediction, practiced anywhere in the world, remains to be proven useful. Better building-code enforcement, on the other hand, could have saved lives.
周一袭击中国中部地区的大地震是一周之内袭击亚洲的第二场自然灾难。然而，与袭击缅甸的飓风不同——如果有预警系统，飓风的破坏可以被减轻——中国的 7.9级地震，即使有这样的系统，也几乎于事无补。地震预测，虽然全世界都在进行，是否有用仍然有待证明。另一方面，实施更严格的建筑规范却可能能拯救生命。
Even in Indonesia's Banda Aceh, the area hit worst by the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, many well-engineered buildings survived fairly intact, while adjacent structures collapsed. In fact, almost everywhere in the Indian Ocean where the impact of the 2004 tsunami was felt, most buildings constructed to higher standards -- such as churches, mosques and temples or other places of worship -- survived fairly unscathed. And that earthquake competes with the 1964 Great Alaskan earthquake as one of the largest seismic events ever measured.
甚至是在印尼的班达亚齐（这个地区受2004年的苏门答腊岛地震打击最严重），很多设计、建造良好的建筑物相当完好地保存下来，而邻近的房屋倒塌了。事实上，几乎在所有感到2004年海啸影响的印度洋地区，大部分按照较高标准建造的建筑——比如教堂、清真寺、寺庙或其它祭拜场所——基本安然无恙。 那场地震可与曾经测量到的最强地震之一的1964年阿拉斯加大地震相提并论。
China's massive earthquake wasn't without precedent. In 1993, a magnitude 7.5 tremor killed about 9,000 people in the northwestern Sichuan Basin. Monday's event happened when, according to the United States Geological Survey, the Earth's crust underlying the high Tibetan Plateau edged west, rubbing up against the crust underlying the Sichuan Basin and southeastern China. It was a shallow event, meaning the collision happened only a few miles below the Earth's surface -- intensifying the destruction. Its tremors were felt even 2,000 kilometers away, in Bangkok.
中国的大地震并非没有先例。1993年，四川盆地西北部发生的7.5级地震使大约9000人丧生。根据美国地质调查所的说法，周一的地震是因为西藏高原下面的地壳向西移动，挤压了四川盆地和中国东南部的地壳。震源距地表很浅，意味着碰撞仅仅是在地球表面下几英里发生，这增强了地震的破坏性。震感甚至在2000公里之外的曼谷也能感觉到。
The Chinese government was aware of this threat and took measures to protect against it. In 2006, Chinese regulators updated the country's building codes and made major changes in regard to new buildings' required "earthquake loads," or the ability of a structure to withstand shaking. China's code is now on par with similar codes in seismically active areas of the world. China has become one of the most active users of modern approaches of structural control and health monitoring of civil infrastructure structures. Virtually all major new civil structures, such as long bridges and athletic stadiums, are heavily instrumented with sensors that can detect and assess rapid changes in the building's condition. Innovation is booming.
中国政府意识到了这个威胁并采取了措施进行防范。2006年，中国监管人员更新了国家建筑规范，对新建建筑所要求的地震载荷，或者说建筑物对震动的承受能力，进行了重大的修改。中国现在实行的规范与世界其他地震活跃地区施行的类似规范一致。中国已经成为使用现代手段进行结构控制，对民用基础设施进行安全监控的国家之一。几乎所有主要的新建民用建筑，比如大桥和体育馆，都装备了不少能够检测和评定建筑物状况的迅速变化的传感器。创新在急速发展。
As in other countries, however, China's problem is that there are many older structures that do not meet the stricter new codes, or don't maintain it once the building is constructed. From initial reports, the geographical distribution of destruction suggests that near the center of the industrial city of Chengdu, where the damage has been limited, building codes had been enforced. But in the rural areas -- which were hit hardest -- these codes weren't followed. This pattern, where the surrounding, poorer areas of large cities suffer the most casualties, is often observed in the aftermath of natural disasters in developing nations. The types of catastrophic collapses seen in the first news reels from China this week are reminiscent of similar scenes most recently from Bam in Iran in 2003 and Turkey in 1999.
然而，与其它国家一样，中国的问题是存在很多较老的建筑，这些建筑不符合更严格的新规范，或者在建筑完成之后不维护。在最初的报道中，地震破坏的地理分布显示，在工业城市 成都市中心（这里破坏有限），建筑规范是被遵守的。但在农村地区（这些地方受到了最严重的打击），这些规范未被遵守。这种情况，在发展中国家发生自然灾难后，是屡见不鲜的。（大城市周边的贫穷地区伤亡情况最严重。）在本周来自中国的第一波报道所见到的灾难性的垮塌让人回忆起最近2003年伊朗巴姆和1999年土耳其的类似情景。
Those earthquakes were of a smaller magnitude but had a similar impact in terms of deaths. And many of those deaths were entirely unnecessary. There is no excuse for the collapse of schools or other public buildings such as hospitals, whether they were built recently or decades ago. If any local authority wanted to use public buildings that did not meet current codes, Beijing could have required local governments to retroactively strengthen those structures. In this regard, the Chinese government can do much better.
这些地震震级较小，但就死亡人数而言，影响差不多。其中的很多死亡都完全不应该发生。学校、其它公共建筑，比如医院的倒塌是没有任何借口的，无论这些建筑是新建的还是几十年前建的。如果任何地方政府想要使用不符合现有规范的公共建筑，北京本可以要求地方政府对这些建筑进行补救性加固。在这方面，中国政府可以做得更好。
The government is now doing what it can now to limit the extent of the damage. Search and rescue operations thus far have been excellent. In the otherwise chaotic city of Dujiangyan, there are reports that emergency vehicles were able to pass through quickly. More than 1,000 search and rescue personnel have been already deployed, many thousands of troops are on the way, and even Premier Wen Jiabao was in the field yesterday, lending support to the rescuers. All this is in sharp contrast to what happened in 1976, when the Tangshan earthquake left 240,000 dead. China then was in denial, and the news of the carnage trickled out for weeks without any official acknowledgment from the government.
中国政府正在尽一切努力将损失的程度降到最低。 搜救行动到目前为止是很不错的。在其它方面一片混乱的都江堰，有报道说急救车辆却能够顺畅的行驶。 1000多名搜救人员已经部署完毕，几万名军人正在赶往灾区，甚至温家宝总理昨天也到达了灾区，给救援人员提供支持。所有这些与1976年造成24万人死亡的唐山大地震形成了鲜明对比。那时中国否认地震发生，灾难的新闻几个星期才慢慢流出来，官方没有正式承认。
So far, China has been very open in reporting the extent of the damage -- which anyway is difficult to hide given the global seismic networks -- and has been equally open in encouraging foreign help. Burma should take note: Natural phenomena such as earthquakes, cyclones and tsunamis can become natural disasters only when governments fail to monitor, prepare and, when they occur, acknowledge that no country can handle a devastating disaster on its own. If only China had earlier lived up to the world's expectation of an industrial power, and implemented and enforced building codes -- particularly in an area known to have produced deadly earthquakes in the past -- it wouldn't have to ask for so much help today.
到目前为止，中国政府在对地震损失程度的报道上非常公开（全球地震监测网络使隐藏消息变得很难），并且同样公开地鼓励国际援助。缅甸政府应该注意：地震、 飓风和海啸等自然现象只有在政府没能监测和准备，并且在发生后，不承认没有哪个国家能够独自面对破坏性的灾难的情况下，才会变成自然灾害。 如果中国能够早些达到世界对一个工业化国家的期望，并且贯彻和实施建筑规范——特别是在那些已知的曾经发生过致命地震的地区——他今天就不会要求这么多援助了。
Mr. Synolakis is professor of civil engineering at the University of Southern California.
Synolakis先生是南加州大学的土木工程教授
（Translated by 丁晓钟）
点点宝宝 - 2008-5-22 19:20:00
签个到
在出差
回去学习
丁老师辛苦了
期待着考研全套资料
gf1985 - 2008-5-22 22:17:00
先下下来漫漫研究,谢谢丁老师
linben1988 - 2008-5-22 22:19:00
学习中 顶一下
我是阿布FD - 2008-5-22 23:36:00
先打印下来 慢慢看
baiweizi - 2008-5-23 7:04:00
打印下来，好好研究一下，谢谢丁老师！ :)
hu763718303 - 2008-5-23 11:46:00
呵呵。。。好好精读下！谢谢！老丁！
Farmer - 2008-5-23 16:25:00
谢谢丁老师，丁老师辛苦了。
smile1986 - 2008-5-23 19:50:00
顶一下.
我要开始好好学英语,踏实的走每一步~~~
john_163 - 2008-5-25 13:00:00
原帖由
smile1986 于 2008-5-23 19:50:00 发表
顶一下
.我要开始好好学英语,踏实的走每一步~~~
谢谢丁老师
，老师辛苦了
jeasonwood88 - 2008-5-25 18:20:00
丁SIR 发 的 。。。。 我也要研究研究 :洋葱头12: :洋葱头12: :洋葱头12:
109小七 - 2008-5-25 20:13:00
喜欢！:洋葱头1:
泥濘中的老虎 - 2008-5-25 21:18:00
The Chinese government can do much better.
pig丽 - 2008-5-27 16:33:00
有句话看不大懂
Unlike the cyclone that hit Burma, however -- whose trail of destruction could have been mitigated had a warning system been in place ，whose是指cyclone还是Burma？whose trail of destruction could have been mitigated是从句，那had a warning system been in place做什么成分呢？
chrismiriam - 2008-6-14 10:50:00
原帖由 pig丽 于 2008-5-27 16:33:00 发表
有句话看不大懂
Unlike the cyclone that hit Burma, however -- whose trail of destruction could have been mitigated had a warning system been in place ，whose是指cyclone还是Burma？whose trail of destru......
是 however had a warning system been in place
看看翻译就ok。
我也一开始看不习惯，要一个过程。