The Chernobyl Syndrome
Sophie Pinkham

切爾諾貝利綜合癥
蘇菲·平克漢姆

TASS/Valery Zufavov/Vladimir Repik/Getty Images

塔斯社/瓦萊麗·祖法沃夫/弗拉基米爾·雷皮科/蓋蒂圖片

A worker measuring radiation after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, August 1986


1986年八月，一位工作人員在位于烏克蘭北部的切爾諾貝利核電廠測(cè)量爆炸之后的放射物。

On the night of April 25, 1986, during a planned maintenance shutdown at the Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine, one of the four reactors overheated and began to burn. As plant engineers scrambled to regain control of it, they thought for a moment that there had been an earthquake. In fact, a buildup of steam had propelled the two-hundred-ton concrete top of the reactor’s casing into the air, with masses of radioactive material following close behind when the core exploded. The plant workers had been assured again and again of the safety of the “peaceful atom,” and they couldn’t imagine that the reactor had exploded.

1986年四月25日夜晚，正值烏克蘭北部的切爾諾貝利核電廠按計(jì)劃停機(jī)維護(hù)期間，四座反應(yīng)堆中的一座因過(guò)熱開(kāi)始燃燒。正當(dāng)核電廠的工程師們爬上去想重新控制局面時(shí)，（爆炸發(fā)生了），（但是）當(dāng)時(shí)的他們認(rèn)為一定是發(fā)生地震了。事實(shí)卻是聚集的蒸汽掀翻了這座反應(yīng)堆重達(dá)200噸的水泥頂，并將它推向天空。緊隨爆炸而來(lái)的是大量放射物質(zhì)外泄。這座核電廠的工作人員曾接受到的保證是這些 “熱愛(ài)和平的原子”? 是安全的，因此他們無(wú)法想象這座核反應(yīng)堆爆炸了。

Firefighters rushed to the scene without special equipment or a clear understanding of the potential risks; they had not been trained to deal with a nuclear explosion, because such training would have involved acknowledging that an explosion was possible. They kicked at chunks of radioactive graphite that had fallen around the reactor, and their boots stuck to the melting, flammable bitumen that had been used, against all safety regulations, to coat the roofs of the plant’s buildings. Efforts to douse mysteriously fizzy, incandescent fires only made the conflagrations seethe with radioactive steam. (These fires probably contained uranium dioxide, one of the fuels used in the reactor.)

消防員在沒(méi)有專用設(shè)備，也不清楚潛在危險(xiǎn)的情況下沖進(jìn)了事發(fā)地點(diǎn)。他們甚至都沒(méi)有接受過(guò)處理核爆的培訓(xùn)，因?yàn)榇嬖谶@類培訓(xùn)的前提是承認(rèn)會(huì)發(fā)生核爆。他們踢過(guò)灑落于反應(yīng)堆四周的沾有放射性物質(zhì)的大塊石墨，他們的靴子被用過(guò)但已經(jīng)被熔融的可燃瀝青粘住，他們違反一切安全規(guī)程，只為隔絕這座核電廠的各棟建筑的屋頂。努力澆下去的水泛著詭譎的泡沫，明亮得灼眼的火焰只是讓這場(chǎng)火災(zāi)隨著具有放射性的蒸汽到處肆虐。（這些火中可能含有一種用于反應(yīng)堆的燃料——二氧化鈾。）

Feeling hot, the firefighters unbuttoned their jackets and took off their helmets. After less than thirty minutes they began to vomit, develop excruciating headaches, and feel faint and unbearably thirsty. One drank highly radioactive water from the plant’s cooling pond, burning his digestive tract. Over the next few hours, the exposed firefighters and plant workers swelled up, their skin turning the eerie purple of radiation burn. Later it would turn black and peel away. After evacuation and treatment in Moscow, many of these first responders died and were buried in nesting pairs of zinc caskets. Their graves were covered with cement tiles to block the radiation emanating from their corpses.

由于感到熱，消防員們解開(kāi)了消防服的扣子，脫掉了頭盔。但不到三十分鐘他們開(kāi)始嘔吐、進(jìn)而感到難以忍受的頭疼、眩暈和無(wú)法忍受的口渴。一位消防員喝了核電廠冷卻池中含有高放射性物質(zhì)的水，而這些水燒壞了他的消化道。在接下來(lái)的數(shù)小時(shí)中，曾暴露于核輻射中的消防員和電廠工作人員全身腫脹，皮膚呈現(xiàn)放射性燒傷所帶來(lái)的那種怪異的紫色。隨后這些皮膚會(huì)變黑，然后剝落。在轉(zhuǎn)移到莫斯科接受治療之后，首批出現(xiàn)反應(yīng)的人員死了大部分。他們被放在一個(gè)多層嵌套的鋅匣子中埋葬。為了阻止他們尸體中的放射性物質(zhì)逃逸，他們的墳?zāi)褂盟喔采w。

General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was informed that there had been an explosion and fire at the plant but that the reactor itself had not been seriously damaged. No one wanted to be the bearer of catastrophic news. When the occasional official raised the question of whether to warn civilians and evacuate the city of Pripyat, which had been built to house workers from the Chernobyl plant, he was admonished to wait for higher-ups to make a decision and for a committee to be formed. Panic and embarrassment were of greater concern than public safety. The KGB cut Pripyat’s intercity telephone lines and prevented residents from leaving, as part of the effort to keep news of the disaster from spreading. Some locals were savvy enough to try to leave on their own. But with no public warning, many didn’t take even the minimal precaution of staying indoors with the windows shut. One man was happily sunbathing the next morning, pleased by the speed with which he was tanning. He was soon in the hospital.

戈?duì)柊蛦谭蚩倳浀玫降耐ㄖ呛穗姀S發(fā)生了爆炸和火災(zāi)，但是發(fā)生爆炸的反應(yīng)堆本身沒(méi)有遭到嚴(yán)重破壞。沒(méi)人想當(dāng)這起災(zāi)難性新聞的傳遞者，所以當(dāng)臨時(shí)的政府辦公人員詢問(wèn)是否警告并疏散普利皮亞特市（修建該市就是為切爾諾貝利核電廠的工作人員提供住處的）市民時(shí)，他責(zé)備那人并讓其等待上級(jí)的決定，同時(shí)等待一個(gè)專門委員會(huì)的成立 。相對(duì)于公共安全，驚恐以及令人尷尬的局面才是擔(dān)心之所在?？烁癫袛嗔似绽喬氐某请H電話線，并阻止居民離開(kāi)。? ?
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