在线英语听力室_免费在线英语听力学习网站

俄罗斯乌克兰关系恶化 切尔诺贝利清理工作艰难

The tensions between Russia and Ukraine have begun complicating¹ the ongoing² cleanup at the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

俄罗斯和乌克兰关系紧张，使得世界上最严重的核泄漏现场的清理工作进程更难。

In northern Ukraine, close to the border with Belarus, the world’s largest movable structure is being built.

靠近白俄罗斯边界的乌克兰北部，正在建造世界上最大的移动建筑。

When finished, the 250-meter-wide steel arch is to slide 200 meters to cover the sarcophagus hastily built after the 1986 explosion to entomb Chernobyl Reactor³ Number 4.

完工后，这座250米宽的钢铁拱形建筑将被移到200米外的石棺上，这座石棺是1986年切尔诺贝利4号反应堆爆炸后仓促建成的。

Driver Igor Bordnarch made more than 500 trips to the location, none lasting⁴ more than 15 minutes.  His geiger counter shows the limited effectiveness of the old sarcophagus, which is in danger of collapse⁵.

我们的司机已经来过这里500多次了，每一次停留不超过15分钟。他的盖格计数器显示，这座随时都会坍塌的旧石棺防辐射功能有限。

“This, actually for perimeter⁶ of the nuclear power plant, is a cleaned area.  So the radiation does not go from the ground, from the soil.  It goes directly through the sarcophagus,” explained Bordnarch.

切尔诺贝利司机伊格尔·博德纳奇说：“ 事实上，核电厂的外围是安全的，辐射不是来自地下和土壤，而是直接来自石棺。”

Tons of radioactive material shot into the sky when the reactor exploded.  The fallout blanketed Belarus and Ukraine in what was then the Soviet⁷ Union.  But the Soviet government in Moscow did not raise a public alarm.  It would be scientists in Sweden who told the world something ominous⁸ had occurred.

当反应堆爆炸时，成吨的辐射性物质喷入天空，坠落后散落在当时苏联的白俄罗斯和乌克兰，  可是苏联莫斯科政府并没有提醒公众的警觉，直到后来瑞典科学家向世界宣布，那里发生了恶性事件。

Farmer Ivan Semenyuk said if Soviet authorities had told villagers they would never be able to return home, there would have been panic and perhaps many of the 120,000 people in the area would have refused to leave.

农民伊万·塞米尼克说，如果苏联当局告诉村民他们再也不能回家了，那样会造成恐慌，也许这个地区的12万人口中，很多人会拒绝离开。

“They lied to us. I took only 20 potatoes and a kettle. I fled in my broken-down car,” he said.

民伊万·塞米尼克说： “他们欺骗了我们，我只带了20个土豆和一只水壶，开着我的破车离开了。”

But Semenyuk and his wife have illegally returned home to tend to a small wheat field and raise some chickens and a pig, just 12 kilometers from the accident site.

可是塞米尼克和他的妻子还是非法返回了家园，他们耕种着一小块麦田，养了几只鸡和一头猪，这里离开事故现场只有12公里。

Most of a 30-square-kilometer exclusion⁹ zone remains¹⁰ an eerie¹¹ ghost town, off limits to all but cleanup workers and some officials who may spend no more than 15 days per month inside.

在30平方公里的禁区里，大部分地区仍然是令人毛骨悚然的鬼城，除了清理人员和一些官员每个月在里面呆上15天之外，其他人一律不许进入。

A top Ukrainian Communist official at the time, Leonid Kravchuk, who would become independent Ukraine’s first president, visited the site two days after the explosion.

当时乌克兰共产党高级官员克拉夫丘克在爆炸2天后视察了现场。他成为乌克兰独立后的第一位总统。

“Of course the Ukrainian intelligentsia, Ukrainian scientists and those who were politically savvy¹² saw that Moscow would never tell the truth to Ukraine.  They knew that Moscow always wanted to see Ukraine under its thumb,” Kravchuk said.

Twenty-eight years later those initial Ukrainian suspicions are full-fledged animosities, following Russia’s annexation¹³ of Crimea.

Ukrainian officials say Russia has abandoned its G-8 duties to lead fundraising for the sarcophagus cost overruns, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

乌克兰官员说，俄罗斯背弃了G-8责任，没有带头为石棺超支的数亿美元筹款。

“Now they [Russia] will leave us on our own to finish the construction of the new sarcophagus and it is hugely uncertain whether they will provide the portion of the funds that they took responsibility for,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Valerii Kalchenko.

乌克兰议员瓦利·卡尔钦科说：“现在俄罗斯让我们自己去完成新石棺工程，不能肯定他们会承担他们应付的那部分资金。”

An emergency meeting of concerned nations and the funding coordinator¹⁴, the European Bank for Reconstruction¹⁵ and Development, is to be held April 4 in London to discuss the money shortfall for the sarcophagus.

There are warnings time is running out to avert¹⁶ a second Chernobyl catastrophe¹⁷ due to the precarious¹⁸ condition of the sarcophagus.

有关方面警告说，由于石棺的状况危险，防止发生第二次切尔诺贝利灾难的时间不多了。

“This is why it is very important for us today not to lose time," said Kalchenko.  "Perhaps we have three to four years left to finish the construction.”

卡尔钦科说：  “所以我们现在不能浪费时间了，也许我们只有3，4年时间来完成加固工程。”

But even when the new protective arch is slid into place, the dangerous work will not be finished.

可是即使加上新的拱形建筑，这些危险的工作还没有完成。

Removing spent fuel and other highly radioactive materials will take decades and cost many more billions of dollars, a tremendous financial burden for Ukraine.

清理废燃料和高辐射物质还需要几十年的时间和巨额资金，这对乌克兰来说是一个沉重的财政负担。