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Chernobyl
切尔诺贝利核泄露事件
The worst nuclear-power-plant disaster in history. On April 26, 1986, one of the reactors at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded, resulting in a nuclear meltdown that sent massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere, reportedly more than the fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That radiation drifted westward, across what was then Soviet Russia, toward Europe. Since then, thousands of kids have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and an almost 20-mile area around the plant remains off-limits. Reactor No. 4 has been sealed off in a large, concrete sarcophagus that is slowly deteriorating. While the rest of the plant ceased operations in 2000, almost 4,000 workers still report there for various assignments. 人类史上最严重的核电站泄露事件发生在1986年4月26日，位于乌克兰的切尔诺贝利核电站的一个反应堆发生爆炸。爆炸导致核能外泄，其产生的大量辐射被释放到空气中，据说产生的放射尘超过广岛和长崎核爆的总和。辐射尘向西蔓延，跨越了整个俄罗斯，直指欧洲。自从那时起，成千上万的孩童被诊断出患有甲状腺癌。现在该核电站方圆20英里内仍未禁区，泄露的4号反应堆被封存在一个巨大的混凝土石棺中，石棺也在慢慢渗漏衰败。虽然该核电站于2000年停止运营，但据报道仍有近4000名工人在核电站进行不同类型的工作。 Bhopal 博帕尔事件
Around midnight on Dec. 2, 1984, an accident at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, resulted in 45 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate escaping from the facility. Thousands died within hours. More followed over subsequent months ?a about 15,000 in all. In total, about half a million people were affected in some way. Many of those who survived suffered blindness, organ failure and other awful bodily malfunctions. A shockingly high number of children in the area have been born with all manner of birth defects. In 1989, Union Carbide paid out about half a billion dollars to victims, an amount the afflicted say is not nearly enough to deal with the decades-long consequences. Bhopal remains the worst industrial disaster ever. 1984年12月2日午夜，位于印度博帕尔的联合碳化物公司的农药厂发生事故，导致45吨的有毒异氰酸甲酯从设备中泄露。数小时内几千人因此死亡，随后接下来的几个月死亡人数更是高达1万5千人，总共约有50万人受到不同程度的影响。许多幸存者也都双目失明、器官衰竭或出现其他可怕的身体残疾。这个地区出生儿童出现的各种各样的缺陷也非常高。1989年，联合碳化物公司为此向受害者支付了约5亿美元，但该数额对于以后数十年造成的后果来说真是杯水车薪。博帕尔事件仍然是有史以来最严重的工业灾难。 Kuwaiti Oil Fires 科威特石油大火
Saddam Hussein knew the war was over. He could not have Kuwait, so he wasn't about to let anyone else benefit from its riches. As the 1991 Persian Gulf War drew to a close, Hussein sent men to blow up Kuwaiti oil wells. Approximately 600 were set ablaze, and the fires ?a literally towering infernos ?a burned for seven months. The Gulf was awash in poisonous smoke, soot and ash. Black rain fell. Lakes of oil were created. As NASA wrote, "The sand and gravel on the land's surface combined with oil and soot to form a layer of hardened 'tarcrete' over almost 5 percent of the country's area." Scores of livestock and other animals died from the oily mist, their lungs blackened by the liquid. 萨达姆·侯赛因知道战争已经结束，他无法占领科威特，所以他得不到的别人也休想得到。1991年海湾战争即将结束，萨达姆派人炸毁了科威特的油井。大约600口油井发生大火，科威特成了人间地狱，熊熊大火燃烧了7个月。波斯湾充斥着有毒的烟雾、烟尘和灰烬，并且下起了黑雨，出现了石油湖泊。正如美国航天航空局写道“几乎科威特全国面积 5%的沙土与石油和烟尘混合形成了一层坚硬的沥青混凝块“。大量的牲畜和其它动物因石油烟雾而死，它们的肺部充满了黑色的液体。 Love Canal 爱河事件
In 1978, Love Canal, located near Niagara Falls in upstate New York, was a nice little working-class enclave with hundreds of houses and a school. It just happened to sit atop 21,000 tons of toxic industrial waste that had been buried underground in the 1940s and '50s by a local company. Over the years, the waste began to bubble up into backyards and cellars. By 1978, the problem was unavoidable, and hundreds of families sold their houses to the federal government and evacuated the area. The disaster led to the formation in 1980 of the Superfund program, which helps pay for the cleanup of toxic sites 1978年位于纽约上城尼加拉瓜瀑布附近的爱河是富人区中工薪阶层的小天地，周围有数百间房屋和一间学校。到了四五十年代，碰巧当地一家公司原本埋在地下的2万1千吨有毒工业废料露出了地面。几年后，废料开始在开始从各家后院和酒窖冒出。到1978年问题已经无法避免，数百个家庭将房子卖给联邦政府并撤离该地区。这场灾难导致了1980年联邦政府通过超级基金计划，以帮助清理该地区的有毒废料。 The Exxon Valdez 埃克森·瓦尔迪兹号油轮漏油事件
On the night of March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef in the pristine waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound. The first of what would turn out to be 10.8 million gal. of oil began to spew forth into the cold waters. It would eventually spread almost 500 miles from the original crash site and stain thousands of miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds, fish, seals, otters and other animals would perish as a result, despite the mobilization of more than 11,000 people and 1,000 boats as part of the cleanup. While the Exxon Valdez oil leak is considered to be the largest man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history, the Gulf of Mexico spill may eventually surpass it in severity. 1989年3月24日夜晚，埃克森·瓦尔迪兹号油轮在阿拉斯加阿拉斯加威廉王子湾未经开发海域的布莱礁搁浅。1080万加仑的原油喷涌到冰冷的海水中。最终污油带蔓延至据搁浅点约500英里以外并污染了数千英里的海岸线。尽管动员了超过1.1万人和1千艘船参与清理，但成千上万的鸟类、鱼类、海豹和水獭等动物还是因此死亡。虽然埃克森·瓦尔迪兹号油轮漏油事件被认为是美国历史上是最严重的人为生态灾难，但墨西哥海湾漏油事件的严重程度可能会最终超过它。 Tokaimura Nuclear Plant 东海村核电站泄露事件
On Sept. 30, 1999, Japan's worst nuclear accident happened in a facility northeast of Tokyo. Three workers at a uranium-processing plant in Tokaimura, then the center of the Japanese nuclear-power industry, improperly mixed a uranium solution. A blue flash heralded trouble. As TIME wrote, "One [worker] was knocked unconscious. Within minutes, the others were nauseated, and their hands and faces were burned bright crimson." Two ended up dying, and hundreds were exposed to various levels of radiation. 1999年9月30日，日本最严重的核事故发生在东京东北的一处设施中。当时的东海村是日本核能源工业的中心，而三名铀处理厂的工人铀混合操作不当，随之而来的蓝光预示着麻烦的来临。如同《时代周刊》的报道写道：“一名（工人）被击倒，失去了意识。几分钟内，另两名工人感觉到恶心，他们的手和脸都被烧成了深红色“。两名工人最终死亡，数百人遭受不同程度的辐射。 The Aral Sea 咸海萎缩事件
In early April 2010, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled to Central Asia, where he laid eyes upon a "graveyard of ships" ?a rusting fishing trawlers and other vessels stranded in a desert that stretched for miles in all directions. It was the Aral Sea ... or what used to be the Aral Sea. Situated between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Aral was once the fourth largest lake on earth, as big as Ireland. Since the 1960s, however, when Soviet irrigation projects diverted several of its source waterways, the Aral has shrunk 90%. What was once a vibrant, fish-stocked lake is now a massive desert that produces salt and sandstorms that kill plant life and have negative effects on human and animal health for hundreds of miles around. Scores of large boats sit tilted in the sand ?a a tableau both sad and surreal. 2010年4月初，联合国秘书长潘基文访问中亚，并视察了”船墓“：生锈拖网渔船和其他船只在沙漠中朝四面八方绵延了数英里。这是咸海，应该说曾经是咸海。位于乌兹别克斯坦和哈萨克斯坦之间的咸海曾经是地球上的第四大湖泊，与爱尔兰一样大。自20世纪60年代开始，当时苏联的灌溉项目将数条水源河改道，使咸海缩水90％。曾是充满活力、鱼类成群的湖泊现在变成了个巨大的沙漠，产生的盐和沙尘暴杀死了植物并对周围数百英里的人类和动物造成负面影响。大量的船还倾斜在沙滩上，形成了一个既可悲又超现实的画面。 Seveso Dioxin Cloud 塞维索二恶英云事件
On July 10, 1976, an explosion at a northern Italian chemical plant released a thick, white cloud of dioxin that quickly settled on the town of Seveso, north of Milan. First, animals began to die. As TIME wrote about a month after the incident, "One farmer saw his cat keel over, and when he went to pick up the body, the tail fell off. When authorities dug the cat up for examination two days later, said the farmer, all that was left was its skull." It was four days before people began to feel ill effects ?a including "nausea, blurred vision and, especially among children, the disfiguring sores of a skin disease known as chloracne" ?a and weeks before the town itself was evacuated. Residents eventually returned to the town, and today a large park sits above two giant tanks that hold the remains of hundreds of slaughtered animals, the destroyed factory and the soil that received the largest doses of dioxin. 1976年7月10日，在意大利北部的一个化工厂发生爆炸，释放出又厚又白的二恶英云，并迅速笼罩了塞韦索镇和米兰北部。首先，动物开始死亡。正如《时代周刊》在事故发生一个月后所写道的：“一位农民亲眼看到他的猫气绝身亡，他走过去捡起猫，猫的尾巴就掉了下来。两天后当局将猫挖出做检查时，根据农夫的说法，猫只剩下骨架了“。4天后人们开始感到不适，症状包括“恶心、视力模糊，尤其是在儿童，因氯痤疮造成了难看的皮肤溃疡”。几个星期后，镇子上的人被疏散，最后居民还是回到了小镇。今天镇上的大型公园中还矗立着两个巨大的罐体，里面放置着被屠宰的动物尸体、被破坏的工厂和吸收大量有毒物质的土壤。 Minamata Disease 水俣病
For years, residents of Minamata, a town located on Kyushu (Japan's most southwesterly island), had observed odd behavior among animals, particularly household cats. The felines would suddenly convulse and sometimes leap into the sea to their deaths ?a townspeople referred to the behavior as "cat dancing disease." In 1956, the first human patient of what soon became known as Minamata disease was identified. Symptoms included convulsions, slurred speech, loss of motor functions and uncontrollable limb movements. Three years later, an investigation concluded that the affliction was a result of industrial poisoning of Minamata Bay by the Chisso Corp., which had long been one of the port town's biggest employers. As a result of wastewater pollution by the plastic manufacturer, large amounts of mercury and other heavy metals found their way into the fish and shellfish that comprised a large part of the local diet. Thousands of residents have slowly suffered over the decades and died from the disease. It has taken as long for some to receive their due compensation from the corporation. 多年来，坐落于九州（日本最西南岛屿）小镇水俣的居民总是能观察到动物的古怪行为，特别是家养的猫。这些猫会突然抽搐，有时还会跳海自杀，镇民说这是“猫舞蹈症”。1956年，第一个被鉴定患上称之为水俣病的病人出现，其症状包括抽搐、口齿不清、运动功能缺失和无法控制肢体运动。三年后的调查结论揭露是日本智索株式会社，这个长期以来一直是该港口城市最大雇主之一的公司向水俣湾排放有毒工业废水所致。由于是塑料制造产生的废水，汞和其他重金属大量进入当地人常吃的鱼类和贝类体内，几十年来数以千计的居民因此渐渐遭受痛苦并死亡，而且一些人过了很久才得到智索株式会社发放的补偿。 Three Mile Island 三哩岛核泄漏事故
"Nuclear Nightmare," screamed the April 9, 1979, cover of TIME magazine. On March 28, the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor near Harrisburg, Pa., partially melted down. Coming two weeks after the release of the Jane Fonda film The China Syndrome, the Three Mile Island incident became the natural outlet for fears about the nuclear-power industry. The ironic thing is that while it has become known as one of America's worst nuclear accidents, nothing much really happened. No one died, and the facility itself is still going strong. While the near meltdown is often cited as the reason no new nuclear plant has been built in America in the past 30 years, the industry had begun to slow down construction before Three Mile Island ever happened. 这场“核恶梦“登上了1979年4月9日《时代周刊》的封面。3月28日，位于美国宾夕法尼亚州的哈里斯堡附近的三哩岛核反应堆发生部分熔化，而就在两个星期前简·方达的电影《中国综合症》（译者注：剧情涉及核泄漏）上映，三哩岛事件自然成为对核电工业担忧的发泄口。具有讽刺意味的是，虽然它是美国历史上最严重的核泄露事故，但没有造成什么真正的损失，也无人死亡，电站设施本身依然可以完全运作。而这次灾难通常被当做接下来30年美国再没有新建核电站的理由：三哩岛事故后，美国核电工业的发展速度已经大大减缓。 |
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