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草坪的自动浇水現在可以停了吧？# Living

s*t2014-11-26 08:11

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TSC 140 PP 求祝福！
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w*l2014-11-26 08:11

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【以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区】
发信人: babywhenugon (若林), 信区: Military
标题: 纽约时报：50名核电站工人是日本最后的希望
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Tue Mar 15 22:12:55 2011, 美东)
Last Defense at Troubled Reactors: 50 Japanese Workers
By KEITH BRADSHER and HIROKO TABUCHI
A small crew of technicians, braving radiation and fire, became the only
people remaining at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Tuesday
— and perhaps Japan’s last chance of preventing a broader nuclear
catastrophe.
They crawl through labyrinths of equipment in utter darkness pierced only by
their flashlights, listening for periodic explosions as hydrogen gas
escaping from crippled reactors ignites on contact with air.
They breathe through uncomfortable respirators or carry heavy oxygen tanks
on their backs. They wear white, full-body jumpsuits with snug-fitting hoods
that provide scant protection from the invisible radiation sleeting through
their bodies.
They are the faceless 50, the unnamed operators who stayed behind. They have
volunteered, or been assigned, to pump seawater on dangerously exposed
nuclear fuel, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive
material, to prevent full meltdowns that could throw thousands of tons of
radioactive dust high into the air and imperil millions of their compatriots.
They struggled on Tuesday and Wednesday to keep hundreds of gallons of
seawater a minute flowing through temporary fire pumps into the three
stricken reactors, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Among the many problems they faced was
what appeared to be yet another fire at the plant.
The workers are being asked to make escalating — and perhaps existential —
sacrifices that so far are being only implicitly acknowledged: Japan’s
Health Ministry said Tuesday it was raising the legal limit on the amount of
radiation to which each worker could be exposed, to 250 millisieverts from
100 millisieverts, five times the maximum exposure permitted for American
nuclear plant workers.
The change means that workers can now remain on site longer, the ministry
said. “It would be unthinkable to raise it further than that, considering
the health of the workers,” the health minister, Yoko Komiyama, said at a
news conference.
Tokyo Electric Power, the plant’s operator, has said almost nothing at all
about the workers, including how long a worker is expected to endure
exposure.
The few details Tokyo Electric has made available paint a dire picture. Five
workers have died since the earthquake and 22 more have been injured for
various reasons, while two are missing. One worker was hospitalized after
suddenly grasping his chest and finding himself unable to stand, and another
needed treatment after receiving a blast of radiation near a damaged
reactor. Eleven workers were injured in a hydrogen explosion at reactor No.
3. Nuclear reactor operators say that their profession is typified by the
same kind of esprit de corps found among firefighters and elite military
units. Lunchroom conversations at reactors frequently turn to what operators
would do in a severe emergency.
The consensus is always that they would warn their families to flee before
staying at their posts to the end, said Michael Friedlander, a former senior
operator at three American power plants for a total of 13 years.
“You’re certainly worried about the health and safety of your family, but
you have an obligation to stay at the facility,” he said. “There is a
sense of loyalty and camaraderie when you’ve trained with guys, you’ve
done shifts with them for years.”
Adding to this natural bonding, jobs in Japan confer identity, command
loyalty and inspire a particularly fervent kind of dedication. Economic
straits have chipped away at the hallowed idea of lifetime employment for
many Japanese, but the workplace remains a potent source of community. Mr.
Friedlander said that he had no doubt that in an identical accident in the
United States, 50 volunteers could be found to stay behind after everyone
else evacuated from an extremely hazardous environment. But Japanese are
raised to believe that individuals sacrifice for the good of the group.
The reactor operators face extraordinary risks. Tokyo Electric evacuated 750
emergency staff members from the stricken plant on Tuesday, leaving only
about 50, when radiation levels soared. By comparison, standard staffing
levels at the three active General Electric reactors on the site would be 10
to 12 people apiece including supervisors — an indication that the small
crew left behind is barely larger than the contingent on duty on a quiet day.
Daiichi is not synonymous with Chernobyl in terms of the severity of
contamination. The Ukrainian reactor blew up and spewed huge amounts of
radiation for 10 days in 1986. But workers at the plants have a bond.
Among plant employees and firefighters at Chernobyl, many volunteered to try
to tame, and then entomb, the burning reactor — although it is not clear
that all were told the truth about the risks. Within three months, 28 of
them died from radiation exposure. At least 19 of them were killed by
infections that resulted from having large areas of their skin burned off by
radiation, according to a recent report by a United Nations scientific
committee. And 106 others developed radiation sickness, with nausea,
vomiting, diarrhea and dropping blood counts that left them highly
vulnerable to infections.
The people who had suffered radiation sickness developed other problems
later, according to the report: cataracts, severe scarring from the
radiation burns to their skin and an increased number of deaths from
leukemia and other blood cancers.
Some of those Chernobyl workers were exposed to levels of radiation far
beyond what has been measured to date at Daiichi — especially helicopter
pilots who flew through radiation-laden smoke spewing from the reactor to
drop fire-extinguishing chemicals on it.
Radiation close to the reactors was reported to reach 400 millisieverts per
hour on Tuesday after a blast inside reactor No. 2 and fire at reactor No. 4
, but has since dropped back to as low as 0.6 millisieverts at the plant
gate. Tokyo Electric and Japanese regulators have not released any
statistics on radiation levels inside the containment buildings where
engineers are desperately trying to fix electrical systems, pumps and other
gear wrecked by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.
But nuclear experts said that indoor radiation levels were likely to be
higher because the containment buildings were probably still preventing most
radiation from leaving the plant.
The site is now so contaminated with radiation, experts say, that it has
become difficult for employees to work near the reactors for extended
periods of time. According to one expert’s account of nuclear emergency
procedures, workers would be cycled in and out of the worst-hit parts of the
plant.
In some cases, when dealing with a task in a highly radioactive area of the
plant, workers might line up and handle the task only for minutes at a time
before passing off to the next worker, said Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a former
professor in the Research Center for Urban Safety and Security at Kobe
University.
Tokyo Electric has refused to release the names or any other information
about the 50 workers who stayed behind, nor have utility executives said
anything about how they are being relieved as they become tired or ill.
Some of those battling flames and spraying water at reactors at Daiichi are
members of Japan’s Self-Defense Force, police officers or firefighters.
Others are contractors sent to the plant.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Tuesday that Self-Defense Force
soldiers might be called on to fly the helicopters that Tokyo Electric may
use to spray water onto the overheating used fuel storage pool at reactor No
. 4. The same day, however, members of Japan’s nuclear watchdog group, who
had been stationed about three miles from the plant, were moved to a site 18
miles away. (The authorities later said that using helicopters to put spray
water on reactor No. 4 might not be feasible.) If the plant operator is
strictly limiting the exposure of each worker at Daiichi — and thus calling
on hundreds of volunteers to make up the 50 on site at any given time —
then Chernobyl may offer some consolation.
To clean up the Chernobyl site after the accident, the Soviet Union
conscripted workers in proportion to the size of each of its republics, and
developed a system to limit their exposure.
“They sent up to 600,000 people in to clean up the radioactive debris
around the plant and build a sarcophagus,” said Dr. John Boice, an author
of the study, a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt and the scientific
director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockvillle, Md.
The workers, known as “liquidators,” were sent into contaminated zones for
limited periods. “To date there’s very little evidence for adverse
effects,” Dr. Boice said. “It was pretty smart. A large number of people
got a relatively small dose. There may be a small risk of leukemia, but that
’s not conclusive.”
Keith Bradsher reported from Hong Kong, and Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo.
Denise Grady contributed reporting from New York, and Matthew L. Wald from
Washington.