1 . At least 20 people died and hundreds were injured in a bridge collapse in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata Thursday. Witnesses said many people and vehicles, including two buses carrying more than 100 passengers, were under the bridge when it fell. They also said construction workers had set up camps near the bridge site where they would sleep and cook.
Before rescue teams arrived, local residents and firefighters used their bare hands to try to rescue people trapped under the debris. The collapsed bridge is in a busy commercial area of Kolkata. Its location has made it difficult for rescue operations. Access to the area is blocked on both sides by buildings, and the streets are blocked with heavy traffic.
Reuters (路透社) reports that the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, rushed to the scene of the collapse. She said that rescuing those trapped is her “top priority”. Banerjee said those responsible for the disaster will be punished. Yet she faces questions about the safety of the construction project. The Telegraph newspaper reported last November that Banerjee wanted the bridge — already five years overdue — to be completed by February. Project engineers said they were concerned over whether this would be possible, the newspaper said at the time. Construction workers had been on a strict schedule to complete the bridge. The disaster could affect the West Bengal election next month. An Indian company, IVRCL, was building the 2kilometer bridge, its website said. IVRCL’s director of operations said the company was not sure of the cause of the disaster.
1. Why were so many people killed or injured in the accident?| A．Many people were under or near the bridge. |
| B．The rescue work responded too slowly. |
| C．The bridge was under construction. |
| D．Construction workers had set up camps there. |
| A．Buildings. | B．Ruins. |
| C．Vehicles. | D．Disasters. |
| A．It was designed by a company called IVRCL. |
| B．Project engineers were unwilling to cooperate. |
| C．It should have been completed five years ago. |
| D．The cause of the disaster has been discovered. |
Susanna Rohm said she had experienced a parent’s worst nightmare (噩梦) — her 2-month-old son, Isiah, was not breathing. “I noticed he looked pale. I looked at his arms and his legs and they were limp (无力的),” Rohm told a local newspaper. “Then I noticed that he looked like he wasn’t alive.” In dismay, she dropped and broke her cellphone. Rohm had to run into the street, screaming for help.
“I had him in my arms and screamed over and over. Then I ran outside. I saw two boys playing across the street, and I yelled, ‘Go and ask your parents to call 911,’” Rohm said. But the two boys were able to do more than that. Nine-year-old Ethan Wilson took action, showing Rohm how to perform CPR on little Isiah while ten-year-old Rocky Hurt helped as well.
Rocky said he had learned the CPR technique from a poster in a health class at their school, Sedalia Park Elementary. “I was thinking we’d better give her a helping hand instead of getting scared,” Ethan said. “I told her to push on the baby’s chest five to ten times a minute with only two fingers, tilt back the baby’s head, plug the baby’s nose and breathe into the baby’s mouth,” Ethan said in an interview.
At last, Isiah began crying and was breathing again. He spent two nights in a local hospital. “If the little boy hadn’t shown me what to do right there, my baby would probably not be alive right now,” Rohm said.
1. We can learn from Paragraph 1 that in the US, .
| A．CPR is considered important by most people |
| B．most children are taught how to perform CPR |
| C．many parents don’t know how to perform CPR |
| D．kids must learn how to perform CPR on babies |
| A．Panic. | B．Anger. |
| C．Excitement. | D．Joy. |
| A．She asked them to call 911 as soon as possible. |
| B．She asked them to teach her how to perform CPR. |
| C．She asked them to ask their parents for help. |
| D．She asked them to help her perform CPR on her baby. |
| A．grateful | B．regretful |
| C．surprised | D．ashamed |
