熊爪咖啡馆英语阅读（双语阅读孟买吃人）

小君 2023-09-11 10:05:40 314

熊爪咖啡馆英语阅读（双语阅读孟买吃人）The Bharatiya Janata Party which is part of the coalition that runs the municipal government disingenuously called the tragedy “a natural calamity”. The city’s administrators gave an inkling of their attitude when they first claimed that the railway was responsible for maintaining the bridge before conceding that they were in fact in charge. They then pointed the finger at the inspector from

熊爪咖啡馆英语阅读（双语阅读孟买吃人）(1)

THE TEEMING commuter trains in Mumbai have received a modest overhaul in recent years. Coaches have been redesigned to offer better ventilation; the hard angular seats have been replaced with more comfortable ones; and a plan to air-condition the heaving carriages is under way. But as soon as the 8m-odd passengers who ride the trains every day arrive at their destination they face infrastructure that is as neglected as ever in the form of the pedestrian bridges by which they cross tracks or busy roads near the stations.

近年来，孟买的遍布各地的通勤列车得到了一定的改造。重新设计的车厢通风性更好；坚硬的角形座椅替换成了更为舒适的座椅；目前有计划对拥挤的车厢加装空调。但是，每天坐火车的800万人到达目的地时，他们看到的是一如既往地遭忽视的基础设施——人行天桥横跨轨道或火车站附近繁忙的道路。

On March 14th a big part of one such overpass collapsed outside Shivaji Terminus one of the city’s busiest stations killing six people and injuring 31. The toll could have been worse: the plunging debris did not harm any passengers in vehicles below as a red light happened to be holding traffic back at the fateful moment.

3月14日，该市最繁忙的一个车站Shivaji Terminus外的一座天桥部分坍塌，造成了6人死亡，31人受伤。伤亡人数或许会更糟：跌落的碎片没有伤到下面过往车辆中里的乘客，因为在千钧一发之际，红灯碰巧亮了，挡住了车流。

“It was terrible ” says a taxi driver who witnessed the tragedy. Yet there have been many accidents like it. In 2017 22 commuters were crushed to death in a stampede on another railway footbridge. It was barely six feet wide yet carried over 100 000 people every rush hour. More than 30 lives have been lost in other accidents involving overpasses over the past two years.

“这太可怕了，”一位目睹惨剧的出租车司机说道。然而，已发生了非常多起类似的事故。2017年，22名通勤者在另一铁路人行桥的踩踏事故中被压死。这座天桥只有6英尺宽，每个高峰时段都有超过10万人通行。在过去两年中，另有30多人在过街天桥事故中丧生。

Last year an audit found that 18 of the 296 bridges in the city were dangerous. That is probably an underestimate. The bridge that failed last week had been judged safe by inspectors who thought it needed only “minor repairs”.

去年的一项审计发现，该市296座天桥中有18座是危桥。这可能还是保守估计。上周坍塌的天桥被检查人员判定为是安全的，认为只要“小修”即可。

The Bharatiya Janata Party which is part of the coalition that runs the municipal government disingenuously called the tragedy “a natural calamity”. The city’s administrators gave an inkling of their attitude when they first claimed that the railway was responsible for maintaining the bridge before conceding that they were in fact in charge. They then pointed the finger at the inspector from an external audit firm. He in turn claimed that wet paint and newly laid tiles had prevented him from inspecting the bridge properly. He has been arrested. The construction firm behind the refurbishment in question has also been accused of “substandard repair work”. The city government had blacklisted it in 2017 accusing it of inflating bills and using adulterated material to build roads. Yet it was inexplicably still left in charge of maintaining the overpass.

孟买的联合执政党印度人民党违心地称这场悲剧为“自然灾难”。市政官员最一开始声称铁路局应对天桥的维护，而后却承认实际上是自己的责任。这就显示他们对此的态度。他们之后将责任推卸给外部审计机构的检查人员。检查人员反过来称湿漆和新铺设的瓷砖使他无法准确的检查天桥。警方逮捕了这位检查人员。翻新出事天桥的建筑企业也被指控为“维修工作不合格”。孟买市政府早在2017年将其列入了黑名单，并指责它通过扩大费用和使用掺假材料建造道路。然而，该公司仍然在莫名其妙地负责维护立交桥。

“There is no inter-agency co-ordination and the entire system is designed for kickbacks ” gripes Sayli Udas-Mankikar of Observer Research Foundation a local think-tank. Vital information about the materials used to build older bridges is often missing. Contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder regardless of the quality of their work. “The process is flawed. If you pay peanuts you will get monkeys. And our lives are at stake ” says Rajiv Mishra an urban planner who used to cross the defunct bridge four times a day.

“没有机构间的协调，整个体制都是为了回扣，”孟买的智库观察研究基金会的Sayli Udas-Mankikar抱怨道。用于建造旧桥的材料的一些关键信息经常不翼而飞。无论施工质量如何，合同都是给最低出价者。“招标流程存在着缺陷。如果你投掷花生，你就会得到猴子。我们的生活正处于危险之中，”城市规划师拉吉夫·米什拉也说。他过去常常每天四次走上述出事的天桥。

The city is conducting fresh inspections of some 150 bridges. On March 22nd a local court will hear a petition demanding that the city government do more to strengthen the rickety ones. Opposition leaders have called for more radical action. They want the city and state governments to ditch a multi-billion-dollar bullet-train project until they can get the basics right.

孟买市正在对约150座天桥进行新一轮检查。3月22日，孟买地方的法院将听取请愿，即要求市政当局采取更多措施固化摇摇欲坠的立交桥。反对派领导人呼吁采取更积极的措施不力，希望市政府和邦政府在人们能有基本路权之前，不要建设价值数十亿美元的高铁列车项目。

编译：姚远编辑：翻吧君 来源：经济学人（2019.03.21）

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