切爾諾貝利核泄露事件
The worst nuclear-power-plant disaster in history. On April 26, 1986, one of the reactors at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded, resulting in a nuclear meltdown that sent massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere, reportedly more than the fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That radiation drifted westward, across what was then Soviet Russia, toward Europe. Since then, thousands of kids have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and an almost 20-mile area around the plant remains off-limits. Reactor No. 4 has been sealed off in a large, concrete sarcophagus that is slowly deteriorating. While the rest of the plant ceased operations in 2000, almost 4,000 workers still report there for various assignments.
人類史上最嚴重的核電站泄露事件發(fā)生在1986年4月26日，位于烏克蘭的切爾諾貝利核電站的一個反應堆發(fā)生爆炸。爆炸導致核能外泄，其產(chǎn)生的大量輻射被釋放到空氣中，據(jù)說產(chǎn)生的放射塵超過廣島和長崎核爆的總和。輻射塵向西蔓延，跨越了整個俄羅斯，直指歐洲。自從那時起，成千上萬的孩童被診斷出患有甲狀腺癌?，F(xiàn)在該核電站方圓20英里內仍未禁區(qū)，泄露的4號反應堆被封存在一個巨大的混凝土石棺中，石棺也在慢慢滲漏衰敗。雖然該核電站于2000年停止運營，但據(jù)報道仍有近4000名工人在核電站進行不同類型的工作。
Bhopal
博帕爾事件
Around midnight on Dec. 2, 1984, an accident at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, resulted in 45 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate escaping from the facility. Thousands died within hours. More followed over subsequent months ?a about 15,000 in all. In total, about half a million people were affected in some way. Many of those who survived suffered blindness, organ failure and other awful bodily malfunctions. A shockingly high number of children in the area have been born with all manner of birth defects. In 1989, Union Carbide paid out about half a billion dollars to victims, an amount the afflicted say is not nearly enough to deal with the decades-long consequences. Bhopal remains the worst industrial disaster ever.
1984年12月2日午夜，位于印度博帕爾的聯(lián)合碳化物公司的農藥廠發(fā)生事故，導致45噸的有毒異氰酸甲酯從設備中泄露。數(shù)小時內幾千人因此死亡，隨后接下來的幾個月死亡人數(shù)更是高達1萬5千人，總共約有50萬人受到不同程度的影響。許多幸存者也都雙目失明、器官衰竭或出現(xiàn)其他可怕的身體殘疾。這個地區(qū)出生兒童出現(xiàn)的各種各樣的缺陷也非常高。1989年，聯(lián)合碳化物公司為此向受害者支付了約5億美元，但該數(shù)額對于以后數(shù)十年造成的后果來說真是杯水車薪。博帕爾事件仍然是有史以來最嚴重的工業(yè)災難。
Kuwaiti Oil Fires
科威特石油大火
Saddam Hussein knew the war was over. He could not have Kuwait, so he wasn't about to let anyone else benefit from its riches. As the 1991 Persian Gulf War drew to a close, Hussein sent men to blow up Kuwaiti oil wells. Approximately 600 were set ablaze, and the fires ?a literally towering infernos ?a burned for seven months. The Gulf was awash in poisonous smoke, soot and ash. Black rain fell. Lakes of oil were created. As NASA wrote, "The sand and gravel on the land's surface combined with oil and soot to form a layer of hardened 'tarcrete' over almost 5 percent of the country's area." Scores of livestock and other animals died from the oily mist, their lungs blackened by the liquid.
薩達姆·侯賽因知道戰(zhàn)爭已經(jīng)結束，他無法占領科威特，所以他得不到的別人也休想得到。1991年海灣戰(zhàn)爭即將結束，薩達姆派人炸毀了科威特的油井。大約600口油井發(fā)生大火，科威特成了人間地獄，熊熊大火燃燒了7個月。波斯灣充斥著有毒的煙霧、煙塵和灰燼，并且下起了黑雨，出現(xiàn)了石油湖泊。正如美國航天航空局寫道“幾乎科威特全國面積 5%的沙土與石油和煙塵混合形成了一層堅硬的瀝青混凝塊“。大量的牲畜和其它動物因石油煙霧而死，它們的肺部充滿了黑色的液體。
Love Canal
愛河事件
In 1978, Love Canal, located near Niagara Falls in upstate New York, was a nice little working-class enclave with hundreds of houses and a school. It just happened to sit atop 21,000 tons of toxic industrial waste that had been buried underground in the 1940s and '50s by a local company. Over the years, the waste began to bubble up into backyards and cellars. By 1978, the problem was unavoidable, and hundreds of families sold their houses to the federal government and evacuated the area. The disaster led to the formation in 1980 of the Superfund program, which helps pay for the cleanup of toxic sites
1978年位于紐約上城尼加拉瓜瀑布附近的愛河是富人區(qū)中工薪階層的小天地，周圍有數(shù)百間房屋和一間學校。到了四五十年代，碰巧當?shù)匾患夜驹韭裨诘叵碌?萬1千噸有毒工業(yè)廢料露出了地面。幾年后，廢料開始在開始從各家后院和酒窖冒出。到1978年問題已經(jīng)無法避免，數(shù)百個家庭將房子賣給聯(lián)邦政府并撤離該地區(qū)。這場災難導致了1980年聯(lián)邦政府通過超級基金計劃，以幫助清理該地區(qū)的有毒廢料。
The Exxon Valdez
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On the night of March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef in the pristine waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound. The first of what would turn out to be 10.8 million gal. of oil began to spew forth into the cold waters. It would eventually spread almost 500 miles from the original crash site and stain thousands of miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds, fish, seals, otters and other animals would perish as a result, despite the mobilization of more than 11,000 people and 1,000 boats as part of the cleanup. While the Exxon Valdez oil leak is considered to be the largest man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history, the Gulf of Mexico spill may eventually surpass it in severity.
1989年3月24日夜晚，?？松ね郀柕掀澨栍洼喸诎⒗辜影⒗辜油踝訛澄唇?jīng)開發(fā)海域的布萊礁擱淺。1080萬加侖的原油噴涌到冰冷的海水中。最終污油帶蔓延至據(jù)擱淺點約500英里以外并污染了數(shù)千英里的海岸線。盡管動員了超過1.1萬人和1千艘船參與清理，但成千上萬的鳥類、魚類、海豹和水獺等動物還是因此死亡。雖然埃克森·瓦爾迪茲號油輪漏油事件被認為是美國歷史上是最嚴重的人為生態(tài)災難，但墨西哥海灣漏油事件的嚴重程度可能會最終超過它。
Tokaimura Nuclear Plant
東海村核電站泄露事件
On Sept. 30, 1999, Japan's worst nuclear accident happened in a facility northeast of Tokyo. Three workers at a uranium-processing plant in Tokaimura, then the center of the Japanese nuclear-power industry, improperly mixed a uranium solution. A blue flash heralded trouble. As TIME wrote, "One [worker] was knocked unconscious. Within minutes, the others were nauseated, and their hands and faces were burned bright crimson." Two ended up dying, and hundreds were exposed to various levels of radiation.
1999年9月30日，日本最嚴重的核事故發(fā)生在東京東北的一處設施中。當時的東海村是日本核能源工業(yè)的中心，而三名鈾處理廠的工人鈾混合操作不當，隨之而來的藍光預示著麻煩的來臨。如同《時代周刊》的報道寫道：“一名（工人）被擊倒，失去了意識。幾分鐘內，另兩名工人感覺到惡心，他們的手和臉都被燒成了深紅色“。兩名工人最終死亡，數(shù)百人遭受不同程度的輻射。
The Aral Sea
咸海萎縮事件
In early April 2010, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled to Central Asia, where he laid eyes upon a "graveyard of ships" ?a rusting fishing trawlers and other vessels stranded in a desert that stretched for miles in all directions. It was the Aral Sea ... or what used to be the Aral Sea. Situated between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Aral was once the fourth largest lake on earth, as big as Ireland. Since the 1960s, however, when Soviet irrigation projects diverted several of its source waterways, the Aral has shrunk 90%. What was once a vibrant, fish-stocked lake is now a massive desert that produces salt and sandstorms that kill plant life and have negative effects on human and animal health for hundreds of miles around. Scores of large boats sit tilted in the sand ?a a tableau both sad and surreal.
2010年4月初，聯(lián)合國秘書長潘基文訪問中亞，并視察了”船墓“：生銹拖網(wǎng)漁船和其他船只在沙漠中朝四面八方綿延了數(shù)英里。這是咸海，應該說曾經(jīng)是咸海。位于烏茲別克斯坦和哈薩克斯坦之間的咸海曾經(jīng)是地球上的第四大湖泊，與愛爾蘭一樣大。自20世紀60年代開始，當時蘇聯(lián)的灌溉項目將數(shù)條水源河改道，使咸?？s水90％。曾是充滿活力、魚類成群的湖泊現(xiàn)在變成了個巨大的沙漠，產(chǎn)生的鹽和沙塵暴殺死了植物并對周圍數(shù)百英里的人類和動物造成負面影響。大量的船還傾斜在沙灘上，形成了一個既可悲又超現(xiàn)實的畫面。
Seveso Dioxin Cloud
塞維索二惡英云事件
On July 10, 1976, an explosion at a northern Italian chemical plant released a thick, white cloud of dioxin that quickly settled on the town of Seveso, north of Milan. First, animals began to die. As TIME wrote about a month after the incident, "One farmer saw his cat keel over, and when he went to pick up the body, the tail fell off. When authorities dug the cat up for examination two days later, said the farmer, all that was left was its skull." It was four days before people began to feel ill effects ?a including "nausea, blurred vision and, especially among children, the disfiguring sores of a skin disease known as chloracne" ?a and weeks before the town itself was evacuated. Residents eventually returned to the town, and today a large park sits above two giant tanks that hold the remains of hundreds of slaughtered animals, the destroyed factory and the soil that received the largest doses of dioxin.
1976年7月10日，在意大利北部的一個化工廠發(fā)生爆炸，釋放出又厚又白的二惡英云，并迅速籠罩了塞韋索鎮(zhèn)和米蘭北部。首先，動物開始死亡。正如《時代周刊》在事故發(fā)生一個月后所寫道的：“一位農民親眼看到他的貓氣絕身亡，他走過去撿起貓，貓的尾巴就掉了下來。兩天后當局將貓挖出做檢查時，根據(jù)農夫的說法，貓只剩下骨架了“。4天后人們開始感到不適，癥狀包括“惡心、視力模糊，尤其是在兒童，因氯痤瘡造成了難看的皮膚潰瘍”。幾個星期后，鎮(zhèn)子上的人被疏散，最后居民還是回到了小鎮(zhèn)。今天鎮(zhèn)上的大型公園中還矗立著兩個巨大的罐體，里面放置著被屠宰的動物尸體、被破壞的工廠和吸收大量有毒物質的土壤。
Minamata Disease
水俁病
For years, residents of Minamata, a town located on Kyushu (Japan's most southwesterly island), had observed odd behavior among animals, particularly household cats. The felines would suddenly convulse and sometimes leap into the sea to their deaths ?a townspeople referred to the behavior as "cat dancing disease." In 1956, the first human patient of what soon became known as Minamata disease was identified. Symptoms included convulsions, slurred speech, loss of motor functions and uncontrollable limb movements. Three years later, an investigation concluded that the affliction was a result of industrial poisoning of Minamata Bay by the Chisso Corp., which had long been one of the port town's biggest employers. As a result of wastewater pollution by the plastic manufacturer, large amounts of mercury and other heavy metals found their way into the fish and shellfish that comprised a large part of the local diet. Thousands of residents have slowly suffered over the decades and died from the disease. It has taken as long for some to receive their due compensation from the corporation.
多年來，坐落于九州（日本最西南島嶼）小鎮(zhèn)水俁的居民總是能觀察到動物的古怪行為，特別是家養(yǎng)的貓。這些貓會突然抽搐，有時還會跳海自殺，鎮(zhèn)民說這是“貓舞蹈癥”。1956年，第一個被鑒定患上稱之為水俁病的病人出現(xiàn)，其癥狀包括抽搐、口齒不清、運動功能缺失和無法控制肢體運動。三年后的調查結論揭露是日本智索株式會社，這個長期以來一直是該港口城市最大雇主之一的公司向水俁灣排放有毒工業(yè)廢水所致。由于是塑料制造產(chǎn)生的廢水，汞和其他重金屬大量進入當?shù)厝顺３缘聂~類和貝類體內，幾十年來數(shù)以千計的居民因此漸漸遭受痛苦并死亡，而且一些人過了很久才得到智索株式會社發(fā)放的補償。
Three Mile Island
三哩島核泄漏事故
"Nuclear Nightmare," screamed the April 9, 1979, cover of TIME magazine. On March 28, the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor near Harrisburg, Pa., partially melted down. Coming two weeks after the release of the Jane Fonda film The China Syndrome, the Three Mile Island incident became the natural outlet for fears about the nuclear-power industry. The ironic thing is that while it has become known as one of America's worst nuclear accidents, nothing much really happened. No one died, and the facility itself is still going strong. While the near meltdown is often cited as the reason no new nuclear plant has been built in America in the past 30 years, the industry had begun to slow down construction before Three Mile Island ever happened.
這場“核惡夢“登上了1979年4月9日《時代周刊》的封面。3月28日，位于美國賓夕法尼亞州的哈里斯堡附近的三哩島核反應堆發(fā)生部分熔化，而就在兩個星期前簡·方達的電影《中國綜合癥》（譯者注：劇情涉及核泄漏）上映，三哩島事件自然成為對核電工業(yè)擔憂的發(fā)泄口。具有諷刺意味的是，雖然它是美國歷史上最嚴重的核泄露事故，但沒有造成什么真正的損失，也無人死亡，電站設施本身依然可以完全運作。而這次災難通常被當做接下來30年美國再沒有新建核電站的理由：三哩島事故后，美國核電工業(yè)的發(fā)展速度已經(jīng)大大減緩。
