第三十一期 The Chernobyl Accident 切尔诺贝利核电站事故

不知道小可爱们捉急不捉急，我有那么一、、焦虑(｀⌒´メ)

不过我们都要冷静下来，听英语的时候顺便把翻译练一练，复试的笔试除了专业课还包括英语翻译吖，有的学校还有英语口语，铁子们冲吖！！！

源自恒星英语网，翻译详见原网https://m.hxen.com/englishlistening/rumen/huanqiu/2019-08-15/522685.html

The Chernobyl Accident
切尔诺贝利核电站事故

Thank you for joining us fortoday's Spotlight program. I'm Joshua Leo.

And I'm Liz Waid. Spotlightuses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people tounderstand no matter where in the world they live.

On April 26, 1986 the worldchanged forever. A part of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. Theexplosion released harmful chemicals into the air. Many people died. Even morepeople became sick. Today, over twenty years later, people still feel theeffects of this explosion.

Today's program is on the Chernobyl accident.

The Chernobyl power plantwas a kind of factory. It was in Pripyat, a village in the former Soviet Union.Today, it is in the country of Ukraine. Nuclear power plants make electricity.They use uranium dioxide, a chemical that can be very dangerous. If themachines in a power plant do not work correctly, the chemicals can harm people.This is what happened at the Chernobyl Power Plant.

There were four nuclearreactors at the Chernobyl power plant. These reactors contained machines andchemicals to create heat. Then machines changed heat into electricity.

On April 25, 1986, workersperformed a test on reactor number four. They shut off many of the safetycontrols. The men started to cool the reactor. They used cooling rods. Coolingrods are long thin pieces of the chemical boron. But the reactor cooled tooquickly. So, the workers pulled the cooling rods out of the reactor.

Then the reactor began toheat up again. It became too hot too quickly. The tubes for the cooling rodsstarted to melt. Workers could not put the cooling rods back into the reactor.The reactor continued getting hotter. It produced much more energy than normal.The fuel in the reactor started to explode. The water in the cooling systemturned into steam. This steam blew the top of the reactor building off. Airfrom outside entered the reactor. It caused another explosion. Each explosionreleased harmful chemicals into the air and onto the land.

Fire fighters and themilitary hurried to the power plant. They tried to stop the growing fires. Butthey did not know about the dangerous chemicals. The chemicals wereradioactive. Radioactive materials produce dangerous waves of energy. Theseradioactive waves can damage the cells inside a person's body. Many of thepeople that fought the fires died very soon after the accident. They died fromradiation poisoning.

The explosion at theChernobyl power plant was the world's worst nuclear accident. A radioactivecloud floated over a large area around Chernobyl. The fallout, or radioactivechemicals in the air, spread through Europe. However, most of the falloutaffected the villages and cities close to the power plant. The people in theseareas did not know about the radiation. The government at that time did nottell the people that they were in danger.

Lena Kostuchenko lived nearChernobyl. She and her husband were visiting her mother on the day of theaccident. She was five months pregnant. Lena remembers:

"We were waiting for abus, but no bus came. A policeman came and said that there would be no bussesbecause there had been an accident."

"On the next Sunday, I had to go to work in Pripyat. Againthere were no busses, so we set off on foot. But I began to feel very sickbefore I had walked half way."

The Soviet government triedto keep the accident a secret. They did not want the world to know whathappened. But the government could not hide the radioactive fallout. The peopleliving around Chernobyl, and across Europe could tell something was wrong.

The police and military toldpeople in the nearby villages to leave their homes. The police told the peoplethey would only be gone for a few days. But the people from these villageswould never return to their homes. The people's clothes, and all theirpossessions had become radioactive. After the accident, over three hundredfifty thousand people had to move away from the affected area.

"A policeman finallytold me the truth. He said there was high radiation and pregnant women shouldget out at all costs. At that time, I did not know what radiation was."

Lena went to a hospitalafter the accident at Chernobyl. The doctors took her clothes. They said thatall pregnant women would be forced to either kill their unborn babies or givebirth early. This was to prevent the babies from getting health problems.

"I gave birth to mydaughter Anya two months early."

Lena's daughter Anya wassick even when she was born. Doctors put her in a special room to improve. Lenawas not allowed to see her new baby for eight days.

Soon after the accident,over two hundred people went to the hospital. Thirty-one of those people diedthere. But the people who died then were not the only people affected by theChernobyl nuclear accident. People still felt the effects of the radiation manyyears after the accident. Many groups do not agree about how many people diedbecause of the radiation. The World Health Organization estimates that ninethousand people died. Greenpeace esitmates that it was as high as two hundredthousand.

As Anya became older. Lena noticedthat her daughter was often sick. She believed it was because of the radiation.

"At that time you werenot allowed to say it was because of Chernobyl. Later a doctor told me I hadbeen very unlucky. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time of mypregnancy."

Today, Lena's daughter has arare blood disease. She becomes sick very easily. Lena believes that theradiation from Chernobyl affected Anya before she was born.

The people living in thevillages and cities around Chernobyl are not as healthy as they should be.There are higher amounts of thyroid cancer, birth defects and other healthproblems. People have more sickness that comes from stress and worry. Theaccident also affected the area's economy. Businesses had to close. People losteverything they owned. They had to rebuild their lives.

Lena's home is stillradioactive today. The worst radiation exists in an area thirty kilometresaround the power plant. People are not permitted to travel into this area.

Military workers built aprotective cover for the power plant after it exploded. This covering keepsmost of the harmful chemicals and radiation contained. However, people builtthe cover poorly. And it is starting to break. The chemicals inside will beradioactive for hundreds of years. But the cover will not last that long. Ifthe cover on the power plant continues to break, another explosion may happen.There may be another dangerous accident.

Ukrainian officials havedesigned a new cover for the power plant. This stronger cover will last muchlonger than the old cover. It will protect the area for about one hundredyears. The cloud of radioactive smoke is gone today But it will continue toaffect the world for many years.