日本世界遗产冲绳首里城大火

当地时间10月31日凌晨2时许，日本世界遗产冲绳首里城迹发生大火。

Japan Shuri castle fire: blaze engulfs revered world heritage site

The Guardian

A fire has swept through a historic castle on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, destroying much of a structure that had come to symbolise the ancient Ryukyu kingdom and the island's recovery from the second world war.

sweep

表示“（风、浪、火等迅猛地）扫过，掠过（某地）”，英文解释为“if winds, waves, fire etc sweep a place or sweep through, across etc a place, they move quickly and with a lot of force”举个🌰：

Thunderstorms swept the country.

雷暴横扫全国。

symbolise

表示“象征，代表”，英文解释为“to represent something”举个🌰：

The lighting of the Olympic torch symbolizes peace and friendship among the nations of the world.

点燃奥林匹克火炬象征着世界各国人民的和平与友谊。

Flames engulfed Shuri castle, a Unesco world heritage site located in the island's capital Naha, at around 2:40 am and quickly spread to other buildings in the complex, local police said.

engulf

1) 表示“吞没”，英文解释为“If one thing engulfs another, it completely covers or hides it, often in a sudden and unexpected way.”举个🌰：

A seven-year-old boy was found dead after a landslide engulfed an apartment block.

山崩掩埋了一座公寓楼之后，一名7岁的男孩被发现遇难。

2) 表示“使陷于”，英文解释为“If a feeling or emotion engulfs you, you are strongly affected by it. ”如：the pain that engulfed him 他所陷入的痛苦。

complex

表示“综合大楼；建筑群”，英文解释为“a large building with various connected rooms or a related group of buildings”，如：a shopping/sports and leisure complex 购物/运动休闲中心。

There were no initial reports of injuries, but nearby residents were evacuated while firefighters spent several hours attempting to bring the fire under control.

evacuate

表示“疏散; 使…撤离”，英文解释为“To evacuate someone means to send them to a place of safety, away from a dangerous building, town, or area.”举个🌰：

They were planning to evacuate the ten officials still in the country.

他们当时在计划将仍在那个国家的10位官员撤离。

The castle, a popular tourist spot, dates back to the days of the Ryukyu kingdom, which began in 1429 and ended in the late 1800s when it was annexed by the government in Tokyo.

annex

annex /əˈneks/表示“（通常指用武力或擅自）吞并；兼并；强占”，英文解释为“to take possession of an area of land or a country, usually by force or without permission”举个🌰：

The UK annexed this small island west of Scotland in 1955.

英国于1955年将这个位于苏格兰以西的小岛并入其领土。

More recently, the castle has come to symbolise Okinawa's struggle to overcome the devastation of war. More than 200,000 Americans and Japanese, including around a quarter of Okinawa's civilian population, died during a fierce 82-day battle from April to June 1945. The island is still home to a large number of US military bases.

As the headquarters of the imperial Japanese army, Shuri castle was relentlessly shelled by US forces, who occupied the island until it reverted to Japanese control in 1972, two decades after the rest of Japan regained full independence. The castle was extensively restored and reopened as a national park in 1992.

shell

1）作动词，表示“炮轰，炮击”，英文解释为“to fire shells at something”举个🌰：

They were under orders to shell the hospital.

他们奉命炮轰医院。

2）作名词，表示“（蛋、坚果、某些种子和某些动物的）壳”（the hard outer part of eggs, nuts, some seeds and some animals），如：snail shells 蜗牛壳，walnut shells 核桃壳。

relentlessly

表示“残酷地，无情地；不间断地”，英文解释为“in an extreme way that continues without stopping；refusing to give up or be less strict or severe”。

revert

表示“归还；归属；回复；恢复”，英文解释为“to return to the original owner agai；to return to a former state; to start doing sth again that you used to do in the past”举个🌰：

His manner seems to have reverted to normal.

他的举止好像已经恢复了正常。

“The cause of the fire has not been determined yet but a security company alarm went off at around 2.30 in the morning,” Ryo Kochi, a spokesman with the Okinawa prefectural police said.

“It started at the main temple and looks to be spreading fast to all the main structures ... firefighters are still battling the fire,” he added.

Television footage showed the multi-structure castle reduced to a skeleton, shrouded in flames and smoke hours after firefighters were alerted to the fire, public broadcaster NHK said.

shroud

shroud /ʃraʊd/ 表示“覆盖；隐藏；遮蔽”，英文解释为“to cover or hide sth”举个🌰：

The city was shrouded in mist.

城市笼罩在雾霭之中。

While the cause is unknown, the blaze is believed to have started in the castle's main structure. The main Seiden temple and a Hokuden structure, or north temple, burned down and a third building was nearly destroyed, Kochi added.

He said a tourist event was being held at the castle from the 27 October, and some work linked to the event continued until 1 am but it is not clear whether that was linked to the fire.

Nearly a dozen fire engines were dispatched to the scene, Kyodo news agency said.

fire engine

表示“消防车，救火车”，英文解释为“A fire engine is a large vehicle which carries firefighters and equipment for putting out fires.”也叫fire truck.

Thanks to the faithful nature of the postwar reconstruction, Shuri castle was registered as a world heritage site in 2000 along with the surrounding complex and other Ryukyu sites in the region.

“Five hundred years of Ryukyuan history [12th-17th century] are represented by this group of sites and monuments,” the Unesco website says.

Unesco was particularly impressed by the reconstructed main hall of the Shuri castle, describing it as “a great monument symbolising the pride of the Ryukyu people”.

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