PBS高端访谈:加州火灾死亡人数上升 搜救队返回废墟

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

　　Officials have confirmed now at least 29 deaths in a storm of fires that erupted Sunday night.

　　Mina Kim of PBS member station KQED has our report.

　　Hour after hour, the flames keep marching across acre after acre of Northern California's wine country.

　　Some 8,000 firefighters spent a fourth day on the fire lines today, fearing forecasts of winds gusting³ to 45 miles an hour. But they may have caught a break.

　　The good news really is, the wind event that was predicted to blow through the night and today didn't materialize quite the level as predicted.

　　So that gave us a better opportunity to have more containment⁴ on our fires.

　　We still have fire growth on some of our fire in different directions. We have a threat that is continuing in multiple areas, into structures.

　　The threat was enough that officials in Napa County have now evacuated⁵ the entire town of Calistoga, more than 5,000 people.

　　Please keep us in your thoughts. The Calistogans out there who are scattered⁶ around, stay strong.

　　Many of those Calistogans sought refugee at American Canyon⁷ High School in Southern Napa County.

　　Karen Ingalls got a call at 4:30 yesterday morning from a neighbor, saying they were all being told to leave.

　　She's already lost her art studio in another city to the fire.

　　Sending up lots of prayers, asking for prayers from all my friends and family.

　　Donna Hardy⁸ came to the shelter with four of her neighbors.

　　It's depressing. I mean, it is. It's depressing. And lots of times, you will think the worse.

　　But if you're sitting and having a good time, making new friends, it makes you hopeful.

　　In Sonoma County, where the Tubbs fire ravaged⁹ the city of Santa Rosa, families members are still searching for scores of loved ones.

　　Yesterday, Jessica Tunis last speaking to her mother Sunday night.

　　She's coughing, coughing. And I'm telling her I love her.

　　And she tells me she's going to die, she can't get out of her house,

　　she's going to die. And then the phone call drops, and I can't get her back on the phone.

　　Tunis' brother found her mother's body in her Santa Rosa home.

　　Sonoma Sheriff Robert Giordano says recovering victims is hard, grim work.

　　Identification is going to be hard. So far in the recoveries,

　　we have found bodies that were almost completely intact, and we have bodies that were nothing more than ash and bones.

　　We will do everything in power to locate all of the missing people,

　　and I promise you that we will handle remains¹⁰ with care and get them back returned to their loved ones.

　　Lieutenant¹¹ Governor Gavin Newsom visited the region today, and acknowledged the toll on life and property.

　　The immediacy is addressing the urgency of mitigating¹² loss of life, property damage, addressing the needs of people that are in crisis that have no place to go.

　　What caused the spate¹³ of fires is still under investigation¹⁴.

　　The San Jose Mercury News has reported that power lines sparked some of the fires, after they were blown down by gale-force winds.

　　The reports say Sonoma County emergency dispatchers got calls about lines falling and transformers exploding shortly before the fires broke out Sunday night.

　　The utility PG&E said high winds and vegetation growth -- quote -- "contributed to some trees, branches and debris¹⁶ impacting our electric lines across the North Bay."

　　As smoke clouds the sky here, and the fire battle goes on,

　　officials are voicing concern that fires spreading from Sonoma County could merge¹⁵ with ones already burning here in Napa County.

　　For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Mina Kim in Napa County. undefined

分享到：