福岛之觞：揭秘核泄露内幕

    这个小组立即奉命撤出，没能打开反应堆的泄压阀。直到下午2点30分，也就是地震发生差不多24小时后，1号反应堆才开始着手泄压。

    在一个小时后的3点36分，氢气大爆炸震动了废墟中的核电站。

    接下来的三天里又发生了两次氢气爆炸，一次发生在3号反应堆，一次发生在海啸时就已关闭的4号反应堆。

    在事故刚刚发生的那几天，绝望笼罩着福岛，没有哪项行动、哪个决策能够扭转局面。不过吉田通过抗命继续向反应堆喷水的决定是十分重要的。最终海上自卫队、警察和消防部门带着多架高压水枪和消防车赶到现场，向反应堆喷洒海水，成功地阻止了事态的进一步恶化。

    福岛的工作有点摸着石头过河的意味，这是因为他们的确是毫无头绪。当第一批自卫队人员到达福岛第一核电站时，他们甚至连一张现场的地图都没有。

    不过菅直人对《财富》表示，他觉得从3月17日起，“我们正在建立起一道防线，我们正在向敌人发起反击。”辐射水平虽然仍然很高，但却没有继续增长下去。又过了几天，福岛第一核电站终于恢复了一些电力。

    但是这还远远不能让菅直人或其他任何人感到如释重负。去年7月19日，东京电力公司表示，公司相信反应堆内的温度已经稳定了下来——这是朝着“冷停堆”方向迈出的重要一步。菅直人说，当想到“最坏的日子已经过去”时，他终于可以松一口气了。

    船桥委员会的报告指出了一个讽刺性的细节：日本政府从来没有令国民对多久才能控制住瘫痪的核电站这种问题有一个现实的认识。随着福岛继续向外排放放射性物质，政府也没有告诉国民正在持续的风险是什么。直到现在也是如此。

    去年12月16日，菅直人的继任者野田佳彦宣布，福岛第一核电站的反应堆已经达到“冷停堆状态”。日本有史以来最严重的核灾难终于得到了控制。

    这堪称是个里程碑式的时刻，它给这个震后伤痕累累的国家带来了一丝心理上的安慰。唯一的问题是，今天仍坚守在福岛第一核电站的工人们会告诉你，这个消息在当时不是真的，现在也仍然不是真的。在福岛第一核电站工作的一位工程师表示：“冷凝剂把反应堆的温度保持在一定水平，不过它离（冷停堆的）目标还有很远。事实上，我们仍然不知道反应堆里面是什么样子。”

    译者：朴成奎

    The first team succeeded and quickly withdrew. But as the second team entered, their "dose rates" — their exposure to radiation—immediately spiked. One of the operators was instantly exposed to 106 millisieverts of radiation, above the 100 "emergency dose limit" mandated by TEPCO.

    The team was pulled out immediately, having failed to open the necessary valves to reduce pressure in the reactor. It took until 2:30 that afternoon—almost 24 hours after the earthquake —for venting of reactor one to commence.

    Just over an hour later, at 3:36, the massive explosion shook the site.

    Over the next three days, two more hydrogen blasts followed, one at reactor three, and one at unit four, which had been offline at the time of the tsunami.

    In the desperate days just after the accident, there was no single event or decision that brought the situation back from the brink. Yoshida's decision to ignore the order against spraying seawater was important. The eventual ability of the Japanese military, police and fire department units, using multiple water cannons and fire trucks, to get to the site and douse it with seawater prevented the crisis from becoming even worse.

    If there was a making-it-up-as-they-went-along quality to the effort, it's because they were: the defense forces didn't even have a site map for Fukushima Daiichi when its personnel first arrived.

    Still, starting from about March 17, Kan told Fortune he felt "we were creating a defense line, we were pushing back against the enemy.'' Radiation levels, while still high, had stopped increasing. Days later some electricity was finally restored to the site.

    But it would be a long time before Kan or anyone else felt any sense of relief. On July 19th, TEPCO said it believed it had stabilized the temperature inside the reactors -- an important step toward the goal of "cold shutdown." That was the first day, Kan says, when he could effectively exhale, when he thought "the worst was over."

    The Funabashi commission report points out in withering detail that the Japanese government never gave its citizens a realistic sense of just how long it would take to get control of the disabled plant, nor what the ongoing risks were as radiation continued to be emitted from the site. Arguably, it still hasn't.

    On December 16, Kan's successor, Yoshihiko Noda, announced that the stricken reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station had reached "a state of cold shutdown." Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident, the Prime Minister said, had finally been brought under control.

    The moment was meant to be a calming milestone, psychological balm for a wounded country in the process of trying to heal. The only problem with it, as workers today at the nuclear power plant, will tell you, is this: it wasn't true then, and it's still not true today. "The coolant water is keeping the reactor temperatures at a certain level, but that's not even near the goal [of a cold shut down,]" says an engineer working inside the plant. "The fact is, we still don't know what's going on inside the reactors."