breach #3
14日から相次いでいる地震の影響で、熊本城などにある多くの歴史的な建造物に重大な被害が及んでいます。
Quake breaches historic walls of 400-year-old Kumamoto Castle
KUMAMOTO — The deadly earthquakes that struck the southern Japanese island of Kyushu on Thursday and Saturday breached the walls of Kumamoto Castle which had previously withstood bombardment and fire in its four centuries of existence.
The fortification in the city of Kumamoto has stood as one of Kyushu’s icons ever since it was built in 1607 by Kiyomasa Kato. He was a veteran military campaigner and feudal lord who took part in the reunification of Japan, which had been ravaged by a century of war.
Television footage on Saturday showed a large section of the stone wall housing the castle collapsed in a dusty heap.
While the castle keep, which has so far withstood the series of quakes, is a concrete reconstruction built in 1960, many of the stone walls are originals from the 17th century. Sections of the outer stone walls had already been damaged by Thursday’s earthquake.
今回取り上げるのは、“breach”という表現です。この単語は「違反、不履行」などという意味で覚えてしまいますが、この記事では違う意味で用いられています。LDOCEで調べてみると、“to break a hole in a wall that is intended to protect a place”と定義されており、『ジーニアス英和辞典』（大修館書店）では、動詞で「（城壁など）に穴をあける、〜を破る」と記載されていました。また名詞でも「〔壁・堤防などの〕割れ目、（城壁に攻撃によって開けた）突破口」を意味します。(ninetails)
