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  3. The worsening crisis at the Fukushima Power Station in Japan has led to inevitable comparisons with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear d

The worsening crisis at the Fukushima Power Station in Japan has led to inevitable comparisons with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear d

admin2013-02-16  59
问题     The worsening crisis at the Fukushima Power Station in Japan has led to inevitable comparisons with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster that killed workers at the plant instantly, caused cancers in the surrounding population and spread radioactive contamination so far that livestock restrictions are still in place at some farms around the Ukraine.
    The situation at Fukushima is certainly grave and immediately dangerous for those at the site who are fighting to make the crippled reactors and fuel storage ponds safe.
    But whatever warnings are now being issued by foreign governments to their citizens in Japan, there are significant differences that set this apart from the catastrophe in Ukraine.
    At Chernobyl the nuclear reactor exploded after a surge in power that blew the top off the power plant and sent how fuel high into the upper atmospheres, where it floated across national borders. A fire that broke out in the graphite core forced more radioactive material into the air, helping it spread further. The reactor had no containment facility to even slow the release of radiation from the plant.
    The Fukushima boiling water reactor is a 40-year-old power plant and it has some glaring design flaws, but the reactors have been switched off for five days, so there is less fresh radioactive material around, and each core is contained within a 20cm-thick steel container, which is then protected by a steel-lined reinforced concrete outer structure. Even in the case of a meltdown, these measures should at least limit the amount of radiation released.
    But what of the population beyond? The risk from radiation falls off substantially with distance. The authorities have already imposed an exclusion zone of 12 miles around the power station, introduced food bans and dispensed potassium iodide pills to those in the surrounding area.
    For the more distant population, the most serious radioactive substances that would be released are caesium-137 and iodine-131. These are extremely volatile., so can be carried a long way. But dangerous doses are not likely to travel far on the wind. The danger comes when radioactive iodine and caesium rain down on the ground, on the pastureland, for example, and livestock eat it. Cows concentrate radioactive iodine in their milk. Radioactive caesium accumulates in muscles, and in the past has built up in grazing sheep. The threat to humans then comes from drinking milk and eating contaminated meat. Both can raise the risk of cancer—iodine especially by being absorbed into children’s thyroid glands.
    What happened at Chernobyl, which was a much more serious accident than this, was that the local Soviet authorities were in denial, they didn’t get people out of the area, they didn’t evacuate quickly enough, and they allowed children to continue to drink heavily contaminated milk, and as a consequence, many children received high doses of radiation to the thyroid and we’ve seen thousands of thyroid cancers as a consequence.
The Chernobyl was regarded as a serious accident because______.
选项 A、people failed to adopt some effective measures to protect themselves
B、many volunteers rushed there to fight to make the crippled reactors safe
C、radioactive substances could spread as far as 20 miles along with the wind
D、the government denied the catastrophe there still threatened people’s life
答案D
解析 本题为细节分析题。从最后一段“What happened at Chemobyl，which was a much more serious accidentthan this，was that the local Soviet authorities were in denial”可知，切尔诺贝利核泄露事件之所以严重得多的原因在于，当地的苏维埃政权否认这一事件，没有采取措施保护当地居民。D选项符合原文意思。A和C选项为细节信息，是一些非根本原因。C选项并未提及，属无中生有。因此，D选项为正确选项。
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