万物简史 第302期:地下的烈火(10)

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　　In 1995, as you will remember, the city of Kobe, three hundred miles to the west, was struck by a magnitude 7.2 quake, which killed 6,394 people. 你会记得，1995年，近500公里以西的神户市发生了一次7.2级地震，造成6394人死亡。

　　The damage was estimated at $99 billion. 据估计，损失高达990亿美元。

　　But that was as nothing—well, as comparatively little—compared with what may await Tokyo. 但是，那算不了什么——哎呀，相对很小——如果与将来东京可能会遭受的损失相比的话。

　　Tokyo has already suffered one of the most devastating² earthquakes in modern times. 东京在近代遭受过一次破坏性极大的地震。

　　On September 1, 1923, just before noon, the city was hit by what is known as the Great Kanto quake, 1923年9月1日快到中午时分，该市发生了有名的关东大地震，

　　an event more than ten times more powerful than Kobe's earthquake. 一次比神户地震强烈10倍以上的地震。

　　Two hundred thousand people were killed. 20万人死于非命。

　　Since that time, Tokyo has been eerily³ quiet, so the strain beneath the surface has been building for eighty years. 自那以来，东京一直神秘地悄无动静，因此地下的张力已经积聚了80年。

　　Eventually it is bound to snap. 到头来，它肯定要爆发。

　　In 1923, Tokyo had a population of about three million. 1923年，东京只有大约300万人口。

　　Today it is approaching thirty million. 今天，人口将近3000万。

　　Nobody cares to guess how many people might die, but the potential economic cost has been put as high as $7 trillion. 谁也不愿意去猜测下一次到底会死多少人，但据估计，潜在的经济损失可能高达7万亿美元。

　　Even more unnerving, because they are less well understood and capable of occurring anywhere at any time, 那种地震人们了解较少，能在任何地方任何时候发生。

　　are the rarer type of shakings known as intraplate quakes. 更令人担心的是一种比较少见的地震，名叫跨板块地震。

　　These happen away from plate boundaries, which makes them wholly unpredictable. 它发生在离板块相接之处很远的地方，因此完全无法预测。

　　And because they come from a much greater depth, they tend to propagate over much wider areas. 由于震中很深，它往往波及广得多的范围。

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