CNN 2011-04-15

To our Facebook fans in Kansas, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania and to everyone who's watching us around the world, welcome to CNN Student News. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, I'm Carl Azuz.

First up, Japan's prime minister wants some answers from the company that runs the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Specifically, the prime minister wants to know when the crisis at the plant is going to be over. He's looking for a timetable from the Tokyo Electric Power Company, and he says one should be coming soon. He's also promised to get this crisis under control "at all costs."

In the meantime, the Japanese government has classified the situation at the Fukushima plant as a level 7. That means it is among the most serious nuclear accidents ever. That rating is based on how much radiation has been released from the plant, and it means officials expect long-term efforts to deal with all the issues caused by this accident. Thousands of people have had to leave the region around the plant. The prime minister promised to help them find jobs, housing and education.

What's happening in Japan has some people remembering another nuclear accident that took place nearly 25 years ago. It was a meltdown at Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet¹ Union. Diana Magnay looks at the long-lasting effects of the worst nuclear accident in history.

We're driving through the exclusion² zone en route to Chernobyl. It doesn't feel like a place where the world's worst-ever nuclear accident happened almost 25 years ago. The sun lends a wintry charm to the derelict homes we passed. In all, nearly 350,000 people were forced to abandon their homes as a radioactive cloud blew over Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

This village is called Zalissya in Ukrainian, which literally³ means "behind the forest." But as you can see now, it has been completely consumed by the forest. And when the villages were evacuated⁴ about ten days after the accident took place, they thought that they'd be able to come back here, that this village would be inhabitable again. But as you can see, that wasn't to be the case.

So, this is the memorial. How many people died immediately after the accident?

Answer, about 30 people in one month died overall. Highly radiated.

Yuri Tatarchuk, who's our certified⁵ guide from Ukraine's ministry⁶ of emergencies, says the final death toll⁷ from the nuclear fallout is impossible to calculate, but that it's less than people feared. Estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency put the number at 4,000. But the World Health Organization points to 4,000 incidents of thyroid cancer among children from the affected⁸ areas.

So now, it's 8.7, 9 microsieverts.

Radiation's not down to normal, but Tatarchuk says it's not a health risk if you're just here for the day.

We're staying here just minutes, but it's not so sure if such levels of radiation inhabiting here is not allowed.

We're not the only visitors. A Russian tour group picked their way through frozen tower blocks in nearby Pripyat. The town was evacuated the day after reactor⁹ number four exploded, before the Soviet Union admitted it had a serious problem in one of its nuclear plants. This year, the government will remove restrictions¹⁰ to the exclusion zone, turning these Soviet ghost towns into a tourist destination, a chance for people to see for themselves the relics¹¹ of a nuclear catastrophe¹² frozen in time.

1 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

2 exclusion   

n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行

参考例句：

• Don't revise a few topics to the exclusion of all others.不要修改少数论题以致排除所有其他的。
• He plays golf to the exclusion of all other sports.他专打高尔夫球，其他运动一概不参加。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 evacuated   

撤退者的

参考例句：

• Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
• The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。

5 certified   

a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的

参考例句：

• Doctors certified him as insane. 医生证明他精神失常。
• The planes were certified airworthy. 飞机被证明适于航行。

6 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

7 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

8 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

9 reactor   

n.反应器；反应堆

参考例句：

• The atomic reactor generates enormous amounts of thermal energy.原子反应堆发出大量的热能。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules.在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

10 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

11 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

• The area is a treasure house of archaeological relics. 这个地区是古文物遗迹的宝库。
• Xi'an is an ancient city full of treasures and saintly relics. 西安是一个有很多宝藏和神圣的遗物的古老城市。

12 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。