迪拜人造岛屿即将竣工

Dubai man-made island nears completion
迪拜人造岛屿即将竣工

Dubai man-made island nears completion		迪拜人造岛屿即将竣工
With 14,000 laborers toiling(1) day and night, the first of Dubai's three palm(2)-shaped islands is finally about to get its first residents.  The Palm Jumeirah, a 12-square-mile island group, is part of what's billed(3) as the largest land-reclamation(4) project in the world, the product of five years of brute hauling(5) of millions of tons of Persian Gulf sand and quarried(6) rock. On Nov. 30, the palm will open to some 4,000 residents, said Issam Kazim, a spokesman for Dubai's state-owned developer Nakheel. When fully complete by 2010, the Palm Jumeirah will be an offshore(7) city, with some 60,000 residents and at least 50,000 workers in 32 hotels and dozens of shops and attractions, Nakheel said. Observers say they are surprised that the fledgling(8) developer has been able to build such a complex project more or less as planned, albeit(9) with several snags(10) that delayed the opening from last year. "The project has captured people's imagination," said Colin Foreman of the Middle East Economic Digest. "Nothing like it has been done anywhere else in the world." Nakheel's island projects, the world's largest land reclamation effort, are reshaping Dubai's stretch of the Gulf coast. The $14 billion project is a key part of this booming city's ambitions to rival Singapore and Hong Kong as a business hub, and surpass Las Vegas as a leisure capital. The frenetic(11) pace of development has utterly transformed Dubai from a sleepy trading and pearl-diving(12) village in the 1950s to a flashy metropolis(13) of 1.5 million. The island's construction has not all been smooth, and most buyers were supposed to get keys to their island homes a year ago. Some of the new land sank and Nakheel needed an extra year to add more and pack it with vibrating(14) land compactors(15), Kazim said. Those moving onto the Palm Jumeirah this year will have to live with construction for another three years, and then an influx of tourists. Most of the owners are foreigners, with Britons making up the largest group, Kazim said.   1. toil：苦干 2. palm：棕榈 3. bill：宣布 4. land-reclamation：土地改造 5. hauling：用力拉 6. quarry：采石、采矿 7. offshore：离岸一定距离的 8. fledgling：初出茅庐的		随着1万4千名工人日以继夜的工作，迪拜第一座棕榈树形的人造岛屿最终将迎来第一批居民。还有两座岛屿在计划中。 珠美拉棕榈岛屿群的总面积为12平方英里，据称是全世界最大的填海辟地工程。五年来，数百万吨波斯湾沙石被疯狂运输到这里。 迪拜国有开发商纳基尔发言人伊萨姆·卡吉姆说：11月30日，棕榈岛将迎来大约4000名居民。 纳基尔说，当2010年全部竣工的时候，珠美拉棕榈岛将成为拥有6万居民、32座旅馆、5万服务人员、数十商店和景点的海上城市。 观察员们说，尽管几经阻碍、开幕式从去年一直后延，他们依然很惊讶如此年轻的开发商竟能几乎按计划完成这样复杂的工程。 中东经济文摘的科林·佛曼说：“这项计划简直是人们幻想中的场景。世界上还没有这样做的呢。” 纳基尔的人造岛屿计划—世界上最大的填海辟地尝试，正在重画迪拜在海湾的海岸线。 这项140亿的工程是日新月异的迪拜港匹敌商业中心新加坡和香港、超越休闲首府拉斯韦加斯的重要部分。 大踏步的发展已经把20世纪50年代那个贸易迟缓、靠跳水拾珠的小村子变成拥有150万人口的耀眼大城市。 岛屿的建设并非一帆风顺，大多数买主一年前就该拿到房门钥匙。 岛屿的某些部分沉没了，纳基尔需要再花几年时间来填补，并用震动土地夯土机来砸实。 今年入住珠美拉棕榈岛的居民还需要忍耐未来3年的工地建设，以及之后蜂涌而入的游客。卡吉姆说大多数买家是外国人，英国人最多。   中国国际广播电台 译  9. albeit：虽然 10. snag：阻碍 11. frenetic：狂热的 12. pearl-diving：下水采集珍珠，是一种比较落后的采珠方式 13. metropolis：大城市 14. vibrating：震动 15. compactor：压土机