VOA慢速英语:Japan, a Year After the Disaster

This Sunday is the first anniversary of the major earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It led to one of the worst nuclear accidents ever.
这个星期天是日本大地震和海啸一周年，它导致了有史以来最为严重的核事故之一。

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.
地震发生在日本主要岛屿本州岛的东海岸，这是有史以来最强的地震之一，一次里氏九级地震。海啸引发的水墙袭击了陆地。

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.
两万人死亡，其中大部分人死于海啸。超过25万栋建筑被摧毁，近40万人无家可归。

Some rebuilding has begun. But many people are still in temporary housing.
一些重建工作已经开始。但许多人仍居住在临时房屋。

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.
福岛第一核电站的三座反应堆熔毁。在危机期间，一些政府官员甚至考虑敦促人们离开东京。美国之音记者Steve Herman在灾难中报道。

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."
STEVE HERMAN：“3月15日，我位居靠近核设施的民众之列。当时不为公众所知的是，预计每小时有1千万贝克勒尔的放射性物质从三座损毁的核反应堆喷出。数日以来，我和数百万日本人民吸收的辐射量比通常情况下要明显高出很多。”

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.
放射性物质遍布一定的区域，其中包括一些日本最宝贵的农田。官方称，81万公顷农田被过量辐射，使得农民无法种植水稻。蔬菜、水果和奶牛养殖场也受到了影响。

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国科学家寻求如何减少辐射水平的建议。有的科学家是来自前苏联1996年切尔诺贝利核事故现场。

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.
日本的这次事故，没有人死于核辐射。一些科学家和政府官员称，即使是损毁的核电站附近的辐射水平也是安全的。但自从这次灾难以来，日本民众越来越不信任官方。

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.
日本也发现自己面临着核灾难后清理工作和向受害者支付赔偿的巨大成本。事故发生前，核电占到了日本能源需求的30%。现在有些人觉得这次事故将成为日本这个世界第三大经济体核电工业的结束。
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.
Thorne Lay是加利福尼亚大学圣克鲁斯分校的一名地震学家。他说，工程师们低估了日本核电站应急电源系统被巨浪淹没的几率。

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."
THORNE LAY：“这更多是设计缺陷，一个工程学上的全面考虑可能会说，让我们把备用电源安放到非常高的高海拔地区，这样它们就不可能会被淹没了。”

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.
Lay先生称，在某些领域与过去相比，科学家们能够更好地预测地震的风险。他说，尽管如此，他们不能给决策者提供所有答案。

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."
THORNE LAY：“有可能的话，我们将尽力提供早期预警并建立应急响应系统。但最终每个人都必须自己做好准备。”

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.
在美国乔治亚州，一座正在兴建中核电站。这是1979年宾夕法尼亚州三哩岛核事故以来美国兴建的第一座新的核电站。

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.
安全并不是唯一的顾虑。核电站建设和生产电力的成本远远高于其它电力来源。