暴雨中的北京

20160721ou 一中两外锵锵三人行 今日话题：暴雨中的北京 LW: Now, from 1 a.m. on Tuesday to about 8 a.m. on Wednesday, the average precipitation across the city reached 47.3 millimeters. We’re talking here about Beijing, which experienced something that I actually haven’t experienced in my lifetime before, some of the heaviest rains I’ve ever seen. I don’t know about you, Nick. NL: Yeah, I mean I’m from the UK, we’re pretty used to rain, but this was something quite unusual. LW: Where in the UK are you from? NL: From the southeast, not too far from London. LW: And have you ever seen something like this? NL: Not for quite this length of time, I don’t think, no. WY: But I think you’re fully prepared, right? Because there is a saying, “all the British people will carry an umbrella with them”. NL: That may be a little optimistic, but yeah, on this occasion I definitely had my umbrella with me. WY: And during this week, on Tuesday morning, you can see Beijing’s meteorological center issued a blue alert for heavy rain, so that means we’re fully prepared for the rain, and this time we prepared better than last time. LW: If you looked at a lot of the images on social media, a lot of the WeChat sights and a lot of the pictures, it showed mass flooding in many areas. WY: And also, you can see that many people just focus on the draining system in the city as well, but at the same time I want to point it out, a report says that in Beijing, within the third ring road, there can be around a million people living underground, and they are all migrant workers. When they cannot afford an apartment above the ground, then usually they would choose these kinds of apartment to rent, and those places used to be surrounded by pipes which is the draining system. So they should be fixing the pipes, especially the draining systems, but because so many people are living there, so it will be very difficult for people to fix it, so that is why there used to be a time when we were saying, in many places in the city, there can be a draining system problem, but nowadays we can see, this time especially, we’re prepared better. LW: Yeah, the draining system is something that was taken care of. Generally speaking, the damage to some property that we saw, if you were driving, especially, it would have been very difficult. NL: I think rain is one thing, but it kind of reminds me of when it snows in the UK, because it’s only one or two days each year, and then everything just shuts down because we can’t deal with snow. WY: Extreme weather! LW: Yeah, and you have to, kind of, make the case, then, that, for, is it worthwhile installing this really complex and presumably quite expensive system, when this happens once every four years? Or do you make the case that, well, this happens once every four years! You have to be prepared for this in case it does happen, what if it happens next year again? Are we going to be in the same situation? NL: I think we are entering a period of climate change and more uncertainty with the weather, so it can’t hurt to be more prepared for any eventuality, but you’re not going to be able to install a state-of-the-art draining system in a city where, like you said, rain like this only happens once every few years. But some form of protection, which seems, by and large, to have been working in the city center, is probably the best option.