澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2010-01-04

The New South Wales Emergency Services is urging Coonamble residents who refused to evacuate¹ their homes to heed² major flood warnings. About 1,000 people have already left their properties as the Castlereagh River rises. The town is preparing for its worst flooding in more than 50 years. The river is expected to peak at 5.5 meters early this morning.

Firefighters in Western Australia are hopeful of bringing a bushfire in the outer Perth suburb of Brigadoon under control. About 60 firefighters are battling the blaze which began yesterday afternoon. No houses have been lost but a shed and some fence lines have been destroyed.

The nation's holiday road toll³ has risen to 69 after the death in hospital of a man injured last week on the New South Wales south coast. The man suffered severe burns when his car hit a fuel tanker⁴ north of Batemans Bay. His two young girls died in the crash, his wife remains⁵ in a critical condition.

And the US and British embassies in Yemen have been shut down in response to continuing threats from al-Qaeda. It's believed a Yemen-based offshoot of Al-Qaeda was behind the foiled Christmas Day plane attack. As a result, full-body scanners will now be installed at Heathrow Airport in London.

I'll be back with more news later.

1 evacuate   

v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便

参考例句：

• We must evacuate those soldiers at once!我们必须立即撤出这些士兵！
• They were planning to evacuate the seventy American officials still in the country.他们正计划转移仍滞留在该国的70名美国官员。

2 heed   

v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心

参考例句：

• You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
• For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。

3 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

4 tanker   

n.油轮

参考例句：

• The tanker took on 200,000 barrels of crude oil.油轮装载了二十万桶原油。
• Heavy seas had pounded the tanker into three parts.汹涌的巨浪把油轮撞成三载。

5 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。