英国卫报：肯尼亚的学校有河马和鳄鱼出没(1)（在线收听）

A drowning world: Kenya’s quiet slide underwater

一个淹没的世界：肯尼亚在水下悄然滑落

One of the first scientists to realise that something was wrong with the lakes was a geologist named Simon Onywere.

最早意识到湖泊出了问题的科学家之一是一位地质学家名叫西蒙-奥尼韦尔。

He came to the topic by accident.

他是在偶然的情况下发现这个话题的。

Between 2010 and 2013 he had been studying Lake Baringo, Kenya’s fourth-largest lake by volume.

2010年至2013年期间，他一直在研究肯尼亚第四大湖巴林戈湖。

The bones of residents of the area around the lake weaken uncommonly fast, and Onywere was investigating whether this may be linked to high fluoride levels in the water.

该湖周围地区居民的骨骼异常快速变弱，奥尼韦尔正在调查这是否可能与水中的高氟化物水平有关。

Then, in early 2013, while he was meeting with residents of Marigat, a town near the lake, one old man stood up.

然后，在2013年初，当他与湖边小镇马里加特的居民会面时，一位老人站了起来。

“Prof,” he said. “We don’t care about the fluoride.

"教授，"他说。"我们不关心氟化物的问题。

What we want to know is how the water has entered our schools.”

我们想知道的是，这些水是如何进入我们的学校的。"

Curious to know what the man was talking about, Onywere visited the local Salabani primary school.

奥尼韦尔好奇地想知道这个人在说什么，他访问了当地的萨拉巴尼小学。

There, he found the lake lapping through the grounds of the school.

在那里，他发现湖水拍打着学校的地面。

Nonplussed, he took out his map.

他感到很困惑，于是拿出了地图。

He looked at the location of the lake and the location of the school, and wondered how the lake had moved 2km without it becoming news.

他看了看湖的位置和学校的位置，想知道湖移动了2公里而但是并没有新闻进行报道。

Onywere rushed back to Nairobi, where he and his colleagues at several Kenyan universities studied recent satellite images of the lake.

奥尼韦尔赶回内罗毕，在那里他和肯尼亚几所大学的同事研究了最近的湖泊卫星图像。

The images showed that the lake had, in the past year, flooded the area around it.

这些图像显示，在过去一年中，湖水淹没了它周围的地区。

Then Onywere searched for images of some of the lakes nearby: Lakes Bogoria, Naivasha and Nakuru.

然后奥尼韦尔搜索了附近一些湖泊的图像：博戈里亚湖、奈瓦沙湖和纳库鲁湖。

All of these had flooded.

所有这些都被淹没了。

As he extended his search, he saw that Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, had flooded, too.

当他扩大搜索范围时，他看到非洲最大的湖--维多利亚湖也被淹没了。

So had Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in the world.

世界上最大的沙漠湖--图尔卡纳湖也是如此。

By September 2013, after further investigation and mapping, it was clear to Onywere and his colleagues how extreme the damage was.

到2013年9月，经过进一步的调查和测绘，奥尼韦尔和他的同事们清楚地了解到损失有多严重。

In Baringo, schools had been flooded and people had been displaced.

在巴林戈，学校被淹没，人们流离失所。

Lake Nakuru, which was previously enclosed by a national park, now extended beyond it.

纳库鲁湖以前被一个国家公园所包围，现在已经超出了这个公园。

It had increased in size by 50%.

它的面积增加了50%。

Onywere, who has the air of a stern, experienced teacher, went to see the governor of Baringo County a few months later, but without much hope.

奥尼韦尔有着严厉的、有经验的教师的气质，几个月后他去见了巴林戈县的县长，但没有什么希望。

He claims the governor showed little interest.

他声称，州长没有表现出什么兴趣。

Benjamin Cheboi, however, the then governor of Baringo County, disputes this, and says that he and Onywere never met.

然而，当时的巴林戈县县长本杰明-切博伊（Benjamin Cheboi）对此提出异议，并说他和奥尼韦尔从未见过面。

Throughout the 2010s, the lakes rose , and tens of thousands of people were forced to move from their homes.

在整个2010年代，湖泊缓慢上升，数以万计的人被迫搬离他们的家园。

Then, at the start of 2020, after a particularly vicious period of rain in Kenya’s highlands, the lakes’ expansion accelerated.

然后，在2020年初，在肯尼亚高原进过一段特别凶猛的降雨期之后，湖泊的扩张速度加快。