Chernobyl Accident Anniversary Recalled

     Pripyat, Ukraine. A dead city. Homes, schoolrooms, playgrounds, and other places are crumbling¹ as wild nature reclaims² the land.

    Pripyat once had some 50,000 residents（居民）. Now they are gone, perhaps forever. Only the artifacts of their lives remain behind, rotting to dust.

    Pripyat died because of the deadliest nuclear power accident in world history. Chernobyl.

    Early on April 26, 1986, reactor³ Unit Four at Chernobyl was put through an experimental test of its cooling system.  The reactor overheated and exploded from steam pressure, ripping the roof off the power plant.  Nuclear radiation spewed into the night sky. And, as people slept, it spread throughout Pripyat, just north of Chernobyl.

    In reactor four, the nuclear fuel and the graphite surrounding it were on fire. Authorities sent helicopters to fly over the reactor to dump sand and other materials to try to stop the fire. But, it burned for days.

    The wind carried radioactive particles from the fire over a wide area. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia. Then, Scandanavia, Britain, and other parts of Europe. As the wind shifted direction, so did the radiation.

    Finally, a day and a half after the explosion, an evacuation of Pripyat was ordered. People were told they would only be gone for several days, so they left nearly everything behind. They never returned.

    Despite the wide spread of radiation, Soviet⁴ officials at first said very little publicly about what happened at Chernobyl（切尔诺贝利）. Many people believed their leaders rather than outside reports about the disaster.

    "No. No. Everything is good. We do not tell lies on our radio and television," said a Russian woman.

    It was radiation detectors⁵ in other countries, many hundreds of kilometers away, that forced the Soviets⁶ to admit to Chernobyl's accident.

    Thousands of people were sent to Chernobyl to clean up debris⁷ from the blast. They also built a structure, called a sarcophagus, to cover the shattered reactor and its radioactive fuel. The workers' equipment became so contaminated that it had to be abandoned. The workers became contaminated as well. Many became ill.

    The Soviet government said at least 31 fatalities⁸ at the Chernobyl plant were directly linked to the reactor explosion. The World Health Organization says another 22-hundred deaths can be expected among those who took part in the cleanup. The WHO report added that, in all, Chernobyl could result in 4,000 fatalities from cancer and other radiation-linked causes.

    A 1986 file photo shows firefighters in protective gear washing a West German car near Herleshausen at the East German border after it arrived from Poland bearing radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear plant disasterRadioactivity forced officials to create a 30-kilometer-wide no-habitation zone around Chernobyl, sealing off Pripyat. Still, the power plant continued to generate electricity until it was finally shut down in December, 2000.

    The Chernobyl nuclear plant's Soviet RBMK [type design] reactors⁹ were not encased in thick concrete structures called containment¹⁰ vessels¹² that are now standard in the industry. Philippe Jamet, the former Nuclear Installation Safety Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, stresses their importance.

    "The containment vessels are very, are one of the barriers. We have to protect the environment and people against radioactivity in case of an accident," said Jamet.

    Russia, incidentally, still operates 11 RBMK-type reactors. The worst nuclear power accident in U.S. history, at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, caused no fatalities and much lower impact to the surrounding area. A reactor containment vessel¹¹ here remained intact despite a nuclear fuel partial meltdown.(本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑)

1 crumbling   

adj.摇摇欲坠的

参考例句：

• an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
• The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。

2 reclaims   

v.开拓( reclaim的第三人称单数 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救

参考例句：

• Society reclaims criminals by teaching them skills. 社会通过教给罪犯技能来改造他们。 来自辞典例句
• When next collecting comes, garbage collector reclaims its memory. 等下一轮回收时，垃圾回收器才会将其回收。 来自互联网

3 reactor   

n.反应器；反应堆

参考例句：

• The atomic reactor generates enormous amounts of thermal energy.原子反应堆发出大量的热能。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules.在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 detectors   

探测器( detector的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The report advocated that all buildings be fitted with smoke detectors. 报告主张所有的建筑物都应安装烟火探测器。
• This is heady wine for experimenters using these neutrino detectors. 对于使用中微子探测器的实验工作者，这是令人兴奋的美酒。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技

6 soviets   

苏维埃（Soviet的复数形式）

参考例句：

• A public challenge could provoke the Soviets to dig in. 公开挑战会促使苏联人一意孤行。
• The Soviets proposed the withdrawal of American ballistic-missile submarines from forward bases. 苏联人建议把美国的弹道导弹潜艇从前沿基地撤走。

7 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

8 fatalities   

n.恶性事故( fatality的名词复数 )；死亡；致命性；命运

参考例句：

• Several people were injured, but there were no fatalities. 有几个人受伤，但没有人死亡。
• The accident resulted in fatalities. 那宗意外道致多人死亡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 reactors   

起反应的人( reactor的名词复数 )； 反应装置； 原子炉； 核反应堆

参考例句：

• The TMI nuclear facility has two reactors. 三哩岛核设施有两个反应堆。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• The earliest production reactors necessarily used normal uranium as fuel. 最早为生产用的反应堆，必须使用普通铀作为燃料。

10 containment   

n.阻止，遏制；容量

参考例句：

• Your list might include such things as cost containment,quality,or customer satisfaction.你的清单上应列有诸如成本控制、产品质量、客户满意程度等内容。
• Insularity and self-containment,it is argued,go hand in hand.他们争论说，心胸狭窄和自我封闭是并存的。

11 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

12 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》