福岛之觞：揭秘核泄露内幕

最黑暗的时刻

    2011年3月15日拂晓，东京电力公司总裁清水正孝坐在公司轿车的后座上，穿过异常冷清的东京街头。这时离日本发生里氏9.0级大地震已经过去3天了，一系列海啸使日本东北部遭受严重破坏。日本历史上从来没有一次灾难可以与这一次相比。不过对于清水正孝来说，他的危机才刚刚开始。

    他正急匆匆地赶往日本首相菅直人的办公室。菅直人此时正在大发雷霆：地震和海啸带来的灾难已经非常惨重了，但现在日本又面临着人类有史以来最大的核危机。此时在东京电力公司的核岛第一核电站，巨大的氢气爆炸已经损坏了三座反应堆中的两座，目前正向大气中释放危险水平的放射性物质。（该核电站的其它三座反应堆在事故时幸好因为例行维护而没有开机）。这三座反应堆中的核燃料似乎正在熔毁。

    而在位于东京以北约160英里的福岛第一核电站，那里的场景简直就是一部末日电影。破损的反应堆不断窜出小火苗，释放出大量浓烟和水蒸汽。由于辐射水平过高，连位于5公里外的应急指挥中心也不得不紧急疏散。不过令人惊讶地是，虽然建设这座应急指挥中心初衷就是作为发生紧急核事故时的备援操作中心，但它却并没有设计成抗幅射的建筑。

    在这痛苦的三天里，福岛第一核电站的情况日益恶化。而东京电力公司——至少是东电的高层，依然没有拿出任何能够控制事态的办法。

    日本前首相菅直人（于去年八月辞职）告诉《财富》（Fortune），当时东京电力公司打电话给内阁经贸大臣，说东电想要把人员全部撤离福岛第一核电站。这等于东电彻底承认了自己的失败，这不免立即令人联想起核电站熔毁的可怕画面。换句话说，这可能造成大量人员伤亡。清水正孝也打电话给菅直人的内阁官房长官，坚持道：“我们守不住了！”众议院议员细野豪志（后来成了主持日核危机的“核问题担当大臣”）打电话给福岛第一核电站站长吉田雅夫，问他是否也认为需要抛弃福岛第一核电站。吉田似乎顶住了清水正孝的压力，他说：“我们还可以坚持，不过我们需要武器，比如高压水泵。”

    自从核泄露发生以来，由于缺乏关于核危机状况的可靠信息，菅直人越来越焦急。他说当时的情况就像在“玩电话游戏。”15日凌晨四点，他命人打电话给清水正孝，要他来自己的办公室。

The Darkest Hours

    In the wee hours of the morning of March 15, 2011 TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu sat in the back of his company car, threading his way through the deserted streets of Tokyo. It had been three days since a massive earthquake—9.0 on the Richter scale—and a series of tsunamis had utterly devastated northeastern Japan. No natural disaster had ever been greater, but for Shimizu, whose company operated the massive Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, an epic crisis had only begun.

    He had been summoned to the office of Naoto Kan, then Prime Minister of Japan. Kan was furious: As horrific as the damage from the quake and tsunami was, Japan now faced the prospect of the worst nuclear accident in human history. At TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi power station, massive hydrogen explosions had already damaged two of the three reactors that had been operating on March 11, releasing dangerous levels of radiation into the atmosphere. (The three other reactors at the power station had offline at the time for routine maintenance.) The nuclear fuel in the three reactors that were operating appeared to be melting down.

    The scene at the plant site, about 160 miles northeast of Tokyo, was nothing short of apocalyptic: small fires blazed at the damaged reactors, the smoke mixing with the steam that they were releasing. Radiation levels would eventually spike so high that the plant's emergency off-site center five kilometers away had to be evacuated; astonishingly, the building was not designed to withstand elevated radiation levels, even though its precise purpose was to serve as a backup operations center during a nuclear emergency.

    For three agonizing days, conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi site had been steadily deteriorating; and TEPCO, at least in the eyes of senior government officials, had not given any sign of being able to get control of the situation.

    To the contrary, former Prime Minister Kan (he resigned in August) tells Fortune that the TEPCO called Tokyo's minister of economy, trade and industry and told him TEPCO wanted to withdraw from the site completely—a staggering admission of defeat that immediately conjured up images of an uncontained nuclear meltdown; a worst case scenario, in other words, of potentially lethal proportions.
Shimizu also called Kan's chief cabinet secretary, insisting: "We cannot hold onto the site!"

    At roughly the same time, Goshi Hosono, who would become the Japanese government's point man during the nuclear crisis, called TEPCO's on site plant manager, Masao Yoshida, and asked if he too thought Fukushima Daiichi needed to be abandoned. Yoshida appeared to push back against Shimizu, his boss, saying, "we can still hold on, but we need weapons, like a high-pressure water pump."

    Kan had been increasingly frustrated by the lack of what he felt was reliable information about the state of the nuclear crisis since its onset; he compared it to "playing the telephone game." At 4 a.m., he ordered an aide to call Shimizu back and instruct him to come to his office.