From VOA Learning English, this is In the News.
这里是美国之音慢速英语新闻报道。
People in Moore, Oklahoma, are starting to rebuild after a three-kilometer-wide tornado hit the city on Monday. Officials say the storm killed 24 people in Moore and nearby areas. More than 200 others were injured.
俄克拉荷马州穆尔镇的人们在周一遭受了一股三公里宽的龙卷风袭击后开始重建家园。有关官员表示，这场风暴造成了穆尔及周边地区24人死亡和超过200人受伤。
President Obama declared a major disaster in Oklahoma. His declaration freed up federal money to help state officials with the recovery effort. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin deployed the state National Guard and extra police to assist with rescue operations. She described the tornado as one of the "most horrific" disasters her state has ever faced.
奥巴马总统宣布俄克拉荷马州遭受重大灾难。他宣布拨付联邦资金用于帮助州政府官员开始重建工作。俄克拉荷马州州长玛丽·法琳(Mary Fallin)部署了州国民警卫队和额外的警力协助救援行动。她称这次龙卷风是该州经历过的最可怕的灾难之一。
"In many places, homes were absolutely destroyed, taken away. There's just sticks and bricks, basically. It's hard to tell if there was a structure there or not. If you get into some of the major neighborhoods, you can't tell where the streets were. The street signs are gone. And that's been a big challenge for us -- being able to determine which area of a community we might be in because the streets are just gone, the signs are just gone."
她说，“很多地方的住宅完全被毁，只剩下砖瓦木梁，很难说是否还存在基本的建筑结构。如果进到一些主要的社区，你说不出街道在哪。街道的标志已经不复存在。这成为我们面临的一个重大挑战，那就是确定我们在哪个社区，因为街道和街道标志都不复存在了。”
Weather experts say the tornado had wind speeds of at least 322 kilometers an hour. It left a path of destruction stretching close to 30 kilometers. The storm flattened large parts of Moore, a city of 60,000 people. A record-setting tornado hit Moore in May of 1999.
气象专家表示，这场龙卷风的风速至少达到322公里每小时，它留下了一条绵延30公里的破坏带。这场风暴将这个拥有6万人口的城市的大部分地区夷为了平地。1999年5月，一场创纪录的龙卷风也曾经席卷穆尔镇。
On Monday Alfredo Corrales crowded into a small underground shelter with his family and a neighbor.
周一（龙卷风席卷过来时），阿尔弗雷多·科拉莱斯（Alfredo Corrales）和他的家人及一位邻居挤在了一个小型的地下避难所。
"Me and the neighbor were just holding on to the hatch, just to keep the door secure. And that wind was blowing over, and the wind was just sucking up on the door. And when it was doing that, the rain was just shooting down into the cellar."
他说，“我和这位邻居只有抓紧门以保证它的牢固。风从门上面吹过，把门都吸走了。这样雨就打进了地下室。”
The storm hit two elementary schools just as students were preparing to leave for the day. Both schools were crushed, leaving many children trapped in the wreckage.
这场风暴席卷了两所小学，当时学生们正在准备放学回家。两所学校都被摧毁了，留下许多孩子被困在废墟中。
"It was just thump, thump and the roof came off. And then I left something and then it was raining, clay on me and all that."
“只听见砰、砰，屋顶就被吹走了，然后我就忘了。然后雨啊泥啊之类的就打到了我脸上。”
Rescue workers dug through the wreckage and pulled several children out alive.
救援人员挖开废墟，救出了几名孩子。
Quick-thinking teachers are credited with saving lives by moving students to closed spaces before the storm destroyed the building. Sherry Biddle teaches at Briarwood. She described how she helped her students protect themselves.
要归功于反应快的老师在风暴摧毁建筑之前把学生们转移到了封闭空间，救了他们的命。雪利·比德尔（Sherry Biddle）在布莱尔伍德小学任教。她回忆了自己如何帮助她的学生保护自己。
"I had them take their backpacks and put them over their heads, just as another safety precaution, as they were down in the center of our room, in the center of our building."
她说，“我让他们蹲在教室中间时，把自己的书包高举过头，作为另一项安全防护措施。”
But seven children were killed when the tornado destroyed Plaza Towers Elementary School.
但是当龙卷风席卷广场塔小学时，有7名孩子遇难。
Susan Pierce is superintendent of Moore public schools. She said many lives were saved because every school followed sheltering directions.
苏珊·皮尔斯（Susan Pierce）是穆尔公立学校的负责人。她表示，由于每所学校都遵循了避险指南，许多生命因此得救。
"Our administrators, staff, teachers and students put our crisis plan into action immediately. We monitored the weather throughout the day and when it was time to shelter, we did just that."
她说，“我们的教职员工和学生们立即将我们的避险方案付诸行动。我们一整天都在监控天气，一到该避难的时候，我们立即就这么做了。”
Oklahoma officials say the current warning system provided enough time to prepare before the tornado hit. But many people lost everything they owned.
俄克拉荷马州官员表示，目前的预警系统在风暴来袭前提供了足够的准备时间。但很多人失去了他们拥有的一切。
There is debate about whether all schools in Oklahoma should be required to have tornado shelters. Some say even the best built shelter might not have protected against Monday's tornado. The National Weather Service rated the tornado an EF-5. That is the most powerful kind of storm on the five-level scale that measures a tornado's power. It was the second deadliest tornado in the United States since 2011, when 161 people were killed in Joplin, Missouri.
关于是否要求俄克拉荷马州的所有学校都拥有风暴避难所尚存在争议。有人表示，即使是最好的庇护所可能也难以抵挡周一的龙卷风。美国国家气象局将这次龙卷风评为EF-5级。这是衡量龙卷风破坏力的五级级别中最高的一级。这是自2011年龙卷风席卷密苏里州的乔普林并造成161遇难以来，美国遭遇的第二大致命的龙卷风。
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