巴拿马运河扩建

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

The Panama Canal opened almost one hundred years ago. More than one million ships have passed through the waterway since nineteen fourteen.
巴拿马运河开通于近100年前。自1914年以来已有1百多万艘船只通过这条水道。

The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It reduces travel by thirteen thousand kilometers. It avoids the need for ships to sail around Cape Horn at the bottom of South America.
巴拿马运河连接大西洋和太平洋，它避免了船只绕道南美洲下方的合恩角（Cape Horn），可以缩短1.3万公里航程。

More than forty ships pass through the canal each day -- more than fourteen thousand each year. Now, a major expansion project will permit more ships -- and bigger ships -- to pass through the canal.
每天都有40多艘船只通过运河，年通过量超1.4万艘。目前，一个重要的扩建工程将允许更多、更大船只从这里通过。

Jorge Luis Quijano is the Panama Canal's executive vice president of engineering. He told VOA's Zulima Palacio that the canal is operating at its limit.
Jorge Luis Quijano是巴拿马运河的工程副总裁。他对美国之音记者Zulima Palacio表示，运河当前通行能力已经达到了它的极限。

JORGE LUIS QUIJANO: "The present canal has a total capacity of about three hundred and forty million tons a year that it can handle, that's the maximum capacity. With the expansion we expect to double that, over six hundred million tons that we can handle in a year."
JORGE LUIS QUIJANO：“目前巴拿马运河年通行能力约为3.4亿吨，这已经是其极限。通过扩建，我们预计运河年通行能力将扩大一倍，达到6亿吨。

Ships pass through a series of locks. These locks raise a ship to the level of Gatun Lake at the canal entrance on the Atlantic side. They lower the ship back to sea level on the Pacific side.
船只将通过一系列船闸。在大西洋一侧的运河入口处，船闸把船只提升到加通湖的高度。在太平洋一侧，再把船只降低到海平面水平。
注：巴拿马运河的水面比运河入口和出口的海平面高出二十多米。

For years, shipbuilders limited the size of many ships so that they could fit through the Panama Canal. But now many shipping companies use bigger ships to transport more goods as a way to reduce costs.
多年来，造船商限制了许多船只的大小，以使其可以顺利通过巴拿马运河。但现在很多航运公司使用更大的船只来运输更多货物以降低成本。

Jorge Luis Quijano says the expansion project will allow many of these larger ships to use the canal.
Jorge Luis Quijano表示，扩建工程将允许很多这样的大型船只通过运河。

JORGE LUIS QUIJANO: "This new canal actually is offering a larger vessel that it can handle, with deeper draft with a longer and wider vessel."
JORGE LUIS QUIJANO：“扩建后的新运河能够通行吃水更深，船身更长更宽的船只。”

Workers are building the new locks alongside the old ones, which will remain in use. The existing locks are three hundred five meters long and thirty-three meters wide.
工人们正在旧船闸的一侧修建新的船闸，这些旧船闸将继续使用。现有的船闸长350米，宽33米。

The new ones will be four hundred twenty-seven meters long and fifty-five meters wide. They will be able to handle ships with drafts of more than fifteen meters. Currently ships can ride only twelve meters deep in the canal.
新船闸长427米，宽55米。它们将能通行吃水深度超过15米的船只。目前，运河中船只的航行深度只有12米。

Engineers could not make the new locks too big. Mr. Quijano says the plans had to balance the size of the locks with the cost for ships to use the canal.
工程师不能把新船闸建得太大。Quijano先生表示，新船闸方案必须就船闸规模与船只通行费用达成平衡。

JORGE LUIS QUIJANO: "We had to look at the optimal size of vessel that would make the return on the investment of a high value to us. So we chose what size of vessels that could actually pay for this project."
JORGE LUIS QUIJANO：“我们必须研究能够给我们投资高回报的最佳船只大小。因此我们选择了能够为这项工程买单的船只大小。”