VOA标准英语2008年-Indian Forecasters Gave Burma Advance Warning o

By Steve Herman
New Delhi
07 May 2008

Indian government weather forecasters say they gave their Burmese counterparts ample warning that a cyclone¹ was headed their way. VOA Correspondent Steve Herman reports from New Delhi the Indian meteorologists add they had no reply from the Burmese forecasters that they were aware of the seriousness of the storm.

 

India says it gave Burma sufficient warning that a potentially deadly storm was headed its way across the Bay of Bengal.

 

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) is mandated² by the United Nations to issue cyclone warnings to seven other countries in the region, including Burma.

 

The IMD's cyclone director, M. Mahapatra, tells VOA News regular advisories³ were issued to Burma from April 26, when the forming tropical depression was detected in the Bay of Bengal. He says his department followed up with subsequent bulletins as well as an e-mailed warning when it became apparent that Cyclone Nargis was going to strike Burma, also known as Myanmar.

 

"We issued the lengthy⁴ warning for Myanmar, that is, a cyclone is likely to cross [the] Myanmar coast - that bulletin was issued 36 hours in advance. We sent an e-mail actually, we could not get any reply. So there was no direct contact, but we had sent the bulletins as for the practice."

 

Other international forecasters also predicted Cyclone Nargis was likely to cause devastation⁵ to Burma.

 

VOA News last Thursday reported the storm was more likely to strike Burma than Bangladesh, and quoted a British academic forecaster as saying there was a one in three chance of Nargis strengthening into a super cyclone along the magnitude of Cyclone Sidr, which killed several thousand people in Bangladesh last November.

Indian authorities say Burma had ample time to issue domestic warnings and save lives. That was an assessment⁶ echoed Monday by U.S. First Lady Laura Bush when she noted⁷ that the military-run government was aware of the threat, but Burma's state-run media failed to issue timely warnings to those in the path of the killer⁸ storm.

The World Meteorological Organization in Geneva says its Burmese representative has told it that warnings were issued by the country the day before the cyclone made landfall.

"I do not necessarily put doubt over that because we will be able to verify this sooner or later to which extent information was really disseminated⁹ to the general public," said Dieter Schiessel, the WMO's risk reduction director. "The weakness seems to be how the information was received and converted into protective measures."

 

The Burmese government says more than 22,000 died after the storm made landfall in the Irawaddy River delta¹⁰ late Friday and swept into Rangoon the following day. An estimated 40,000 people are missing and perhaps as many as one million are homeless.

 

It is the worst disaster in the region since the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami¹¹, which killed more than 200,000 people in 12 countries.

1 cyclone   

n.旋风，龙卷风

参考例句：

• An exceptionally violent cyclone hit the town last night.昨晚异常猛烈的旋风吹袭了那个小镇。
• The cyclone brought misery to thousands of people.旋风给成千上万的人带来苦难。

2 mandated   

adj. 委托统治的

参考例句：

• Mandated desegregation of public schools. 命令解除公立学校中的种族隔离
• Britain was mandated to govern the former colony of German East Africa. 英国受权代管德国在东非的前殖民地。

3 advisories   

n.（有关进展、动向、建议等的）报告( advisory的名词复数 )；公告；通告；通报

参考例句：

• Compliance with Practice Advisories is optional. 是否遵守实务公告由审计师自行选择决定。 来自互联网
• Hardened-PHP: not as such a PHP security information website, but it does have security advisories. 增强PHP:不仅仅是一个PHP安全新的网站，它还提供安全建议。 来自互联网

4 lengthy   

adj.漫长的，冗长的

参考例句：

• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
• The professor wrote a lengthy book on Napoleon.教授写了一部有关拿破仑的巨著。

5 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

7 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

8 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

9 disseminated   

散布，传播( disseminate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Their findings have been widely disseminated . 他们的研究成果已经广为传播。
• Berkovitz had contracted polio after ingesting a vaccine disseminated under federal supervision. 伯考维茨在接种了在联邦监督下分发的牛痘疫苗后传染上脊髓灰质炎。

10 delta   

n.（流的）角洲

参考例句：

• He has been to the delta of the Nile.他曾去过尼罗河三角洲。
• The Nile divides at its mouth and forms a delta.尼罗河在河口分岔，形成了一个三角洲。

11 tsunami   

n.海啸

参考例句：

• Powerful quake sparks tsunami warning in Japan.大地震触发了日本的海啸预警。
• Coastlines all around the Indian Ocean inundated by a huge tsunami.大海啸把印度洋沿岸地区都淹没了。