關注社會:日本大地震海嘯一週年

This Sunday is the first anniversary of the major earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It led to one of the worst nuclear accidents ever.

本週日是日本大地震和海嘯一週年，這次災難導致了有史以來最爲嚴重的核事故之一。

The quake struck near the east coast of Honshu, Japan's main island. It was one of the Most powerful ever recorded — a magnitude nine. A wall of water struck the land.

地震發生在日本主島本州島的東海岸，這是有史以來最強烈的地震之一，震級達到里氏九級。海嘯引發的高牆般的洪水襲擊了陸地。

Twenty thousand people died, mostly from the tsunami. More than two hundred fifty thousand buildings were destroyed. Nearly four hundred thousand people were left homeless.

這次災難導致兩萬人死亡，其中大部分人死於海嘯。超過25萬棟建築被摧毀，近40萬人無家可歸。

Some rebuilding has begun. But many people are still in temporary housing.

一些重建工作已經開始，但許多人仍然居住在臨時房屋中。

Three reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station suffered meltdowns. During the crisis, some government officials even considered urging people to leave Tokyo. VOA's Steve Herman reported on the disaster.

福島第一核電站的三座反應堆熔燬。危機期間，一些政府官員甚至考慮督促人們逃離東京。美國之音記者史蒂夫·赫爾曼（Steve Herman）在災難中報道。

STEVE HERMAN: "I was among those near the atomic power facility on the fifteenth of March when, unknown to the public, an estimated ten million becquerels per hour of radioactive substances spewed from the three crippled reactors. For days, I and millions of people in Japan absorbed significantly higher doses of radiation than we normally would have been exposed to."

赫爾曼：“3月15日，我位居靠近核設施的民衆之列。當時不爲公衆所知的是，預計每小時有1千萬貝克勒爾的放射性物質從三座損毀的核反應堆噴出。多日來，我和數百萬日本人民吸收的輻射量比通常情況下要明顯高出很多。”

Radioactive material spread over an area that includes some of Japan's most valuable farmland. Officials say eighty-one thousand hectares of farmland are too heavily irradiated to let farmers plant rice. Vegetable, fruit and dairy farms also are affected.

放射性物質散佈到一定區域以內，其中包括日本最珍貴的一些農田。有關人員表示，8.1萬公頃農田被過量輻射，使得農民無法種植水稻。蔬菜、水果和奶牛養殖場也受到了影響。

Japan's government has been seeking advice from foreign scientists about how to reduce the radiation levels. Some of the scientists are from the former Soviet Union, site of the nineteen ninety-six Chernobyl nuclear accident.

日本政府一直在向外國科學家尋求如何減少輻射水平的建議。其中一些科學家來自前蘇聯1986年切爾諾貝利核事故現場。

No one has died from radiation as a result of the accident in Japan. Some scientists and government officials say radiation levels even close to the disabled power plant are safe. But since the disaster, officials have faced growing distrust among the Japanese public.

在日本這次事故中，沒有人死於核輻射。一些科學家和政府官員表示，即使是損毀的核電站附近的輻射水平也是安全的。但自從這次災難以來，有關官員面臨着日本民衆越來越大的不信任。

Japan also finds itself facing huge costs for cleaning up after the nuclear disaster and for paying damages to victims. Before the accident, nuclear power produced thirty percent of Japan's energy needs. Now some people think the accident will be the end of the nuclear power industry in the world's third largest economy.

日本也發現自己面臨着核災難後清理工作和受害者賠償的巨大成本。事故發生前，核電佔到了日本能源需求的30%。目前一些人認爲這次事故將成爲日本這個世界第三大經濟體核電工業的結束。

Thorne Lay is a seismologist with the University of California, Santa Cruz. He says engineers had underestimated the chances that a great wave could drown the emergency power systems at the Japanese plant.

索恩·雷(Thorne Lay)是加利福尼亞大學聖克魯斯分校的一名地震學家。他說，工程師們低估了日本核電站應急電源系統被巨浪淹沒的風險。

THORNE LAY: "Those are mostly design weaknesses that a good engineering think-through might say, let's put the backup power at very high elevations so that it could not possibly get drowned out."

雷：“這更多是設計缺陷，一個工程學上的全面考慮可能會說，讓我們把備用電源安放到非常高的高海拔地區，這樣它們就不可能會被淹沒了。”

Mr. Lay says scientists are better able to predict earthquake risks in some areas than they were in the past. Still, he says, they cannot provide decision makers with all the answers.

雷先生表示，和過去相比，科學家現在能夠更好地預測一些地區的地震風險。然而他表示，他們不能給決策者提供所有答案。

THORNE LAY: "We will try to our best to give early warning if that's possible and set up emergency response systems, but ultimately individuals have to prepare themselves."

雷：“有可能的話，我們會盡最大努力提供早期預警並建立應急響應系統。但歸根到底每個人都必須自己做好準備。”

In the United States, a nuclear plant is being built in Georgia. This is the country's first new one since the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in nineteen seventy-nine.

在美國喬治亞州，一座核電站正在興建中。這是1979年賓夕法尼亞州三哩島核事故以來美國興建的第一座新的核電站。

Safety is not the only concern. The cost of building a nuclear plant and producing electricity from it is much higher than other sources of power.

安全並未唯一關注的問題。核電站建設和生產電力的成本遠遠高於其它電力來源。