سؤال قراءة ستيب محلول — فهم التفاصيل (تدريب 7354)

(1)Brazil continues to suffer from a historic drought (lack of water), and millions of people in its largest city might run out of water soon. São Paulo, home to around 20 million people, is experiencing its lowest rainfall since 1930, and new water- saving measures have been introduced to deal with such a very difficult situation. 90% of people in São Paulo say that they are being affected by the water shortage. People in other cities such as Rio Janeiro with 7 million people and the capital city of Brasilia with 5 million people are not experiencing the same problems that are happening in São Paulo. (2)Services, including schools and hospitals, are having to adapt to the country’s new water problems. The Cândido Fontoura children’s hospital has denied that it ran out of water earlier this month, but biologist Analice Dora expressed fear: “Everyone is worried. Hospitals are the one place that can’t lack water.” If there is not enough water in hospitals, people could die because they cannot get medical treatments. Water is important to hospitals because it is important for the area to be clean. (3)Although there has been a recent increase in rainfall in the region, it hasn’t been enough to improve supply in Brazil, a country which normally has 12 per cent of the world’s freshwater – more water than any other country in the world. (4)current reserves in São Paulo stand at just 10 per cent—known as the “dead volume”—and the government has warned that it could get worse in the next few months. Reserves are the water that is stored or kept. This is usually used in cases of emergencies. 5) Professor Decio Semensatto from the Federal University of São Paulo has compared the current water situation to a “semi-desert.” And the water crisis will probably last for years. He says that water utility Sabesp is responsible because it has known for years that drought-like conditions would soon arrive, but did not do much to prevent the future problems. The current crisis has reached a serious point, and water rationing may be necessary. Rationing is where only small amounts of something are available. People will only be able to get small amounts of water and will have to use it for only things that are very important. São Paulo State governor Geraldo Alckmin last month admitted that it was already happening. Brazil is not used to such scarcity, but São Paulo is getting used to the way things have to run; There are incentives to use less water, fines for those who use too much and the possible installation of more efficient taps. Sabesp will see if such steps can make the difference before it decides whether to formally introduce wider water rationing. President Bolsonaro has not done anything to help resolve the problem. He does not think that it is a problem for the federal government to solve and has said that the local government needs to fix the problem. How many people live in Rio de Janeiro?