2. 外语
  3. From 2014 to 2020, I recorded 2 620 rainfall-induced landslides worldwide that killed more than 7 000 people. The total number o

From 2014 to 2020, I recorded 2 620 rainfall-induced landslides worldwide that killed more than 7 000 people. The total number o

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问题     From 2014 to 2020, I recorded 2 620 rainfall-induced landslides worldwide that killed more than 7 000 people. The total number of fatalities is even higher than that, as my analysis only considered landslides triggered by rainfall. If other landslides are taken into account, especially those triggered by earthquakes, the death toll rises to a remarkable 80 000.
    This is in stark contrast to official figures in the United Nations International Disaster Database, which indicate only about 7 400 deaths from landslides during the same period.
    Why such a large discrepancy? A key factor is that the UN database includes many other hazard types, such as earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions. Compiling such data is a huge task, so the researchers set a minimum impact threshold (门槛) for inclusion. This is either 10 fatalities or a large economic loss, meaning that many small events are excluded. This is not a problem for earthquake-related data, as unfortunately almost all events that cause significant damage also kill more than 10 people, but it leads to substantial underreporting for landslides.
    A second key factor is that fatal landslides are concentrated in populous but remote mountain areas prone to heavy rainfall or earthquakes. In such places, obtaining information about landslides that kill small numbers of people has been hitherto (至今) impossible.
    The ultimate goal of such data gathering is to reduce landslide deaths. In the past three decades several countries have set up successful programmes to manage landslide risk. Their programmes have reduced loss of life through a combination of engineering works, public awareness, relocation of people most at risk and an early warning system.
    An interesting question is whether deaths from landslides are increasing. My research shows that as population density increases, so does the number of fatal landslides. In part, this is probably because rising population forces people to live and work on unstable land and, of course, when there are more people in the landscape it becomes more likely that any given landslide will hit someone.
    Other factors will also be at play. Environmental degradation, especially deforestation, seems to be making landslides more likely. And the increases in rainfall intensity, which are probably associated with a warming atmosphere, may also be contributing.
What do we learn from the first two paragraphs?
选项 A、There are 2 620 landslides around the world every year.
B、The death toll is twice as high when other landslides are taken into account.
C、The author’s figures are almost in line with official figures.
D、Official figures show there were only 7 400 landslides during the same period.
答案B
解析 由题干定位到第一、二段。推理判断题。第一段通过列数字的方式明确指出作者统计的数据约为32 000人，由于作者的分析只关注降雨引发的山体滑坡，如果将其他类型的山体滑坡考虑在内，死亡人数约为80 000，是作者数据的两倍之多，故本题答案为B)。
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