【龙腾网】切尔诺贝利综合症
The Chernobyl Syndrome
Sophie Pinkham
切尔诺贝利综合症
苏菲·平克汉姆
TASS/Valery Zufavov/Vladimir Repik/Getty Images
塔斯社/瓦莱丽·祖法沃夫/弗拉基米尔·雷皮科/盖蒂图片
A worker measuring radiation after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, August 1986
1986年八月，一位工作人员在位于乌克兰北部的切尔诺贝利核电厂测量爆炸之后的放射物。
On the night of April 25, 1986, during a planned maintenance shutdown at the Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine, one of the four reactors overheated and began to burn. As plant engineers scrambled to regain control of it, they thought for a moment that there had been an earthquake. In fact, a buildup of steam had propelled the two-hundred-ton concrete top of the reactor’s casing into the air, with masses of radioactive material following close behind when the core exploded. The plant workers had been assured again and again of the safety of the “peaceful atom,” and they couldn’t imagine that the reactor had exploded.
1986年四月25日夜晚，正值乌克兰北部的切尔诺贝利核电厂按计划停机维护期间，四座反应堆中的一座因过热开始燃烧。正当核电厂的工程师们爬上去想重新控制局面时，（爆炸发生了），（但是）当时的他们一定认为是发生地震了。事实却是聚集的蒸汽掀翻了这座反应堆重达200吨的水泥顶，并将它推向天空。紧随爆炸而来的是大量放射物质外泄。这座核电厂的工作人员曾接受到的保证是这些 “热爱和平的原子” 是安全的，因此他们无法想象这座核反应堆爆炸了。
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was informed that there had been an explosion and fire at the plant but that the reactor itself had not been seriously damaged. No one wanted to be the bearer of catastrophic news. When the occasional official raised the question of whether to warn civilians and evacuate the city of Pripyat, which had been built to house workers from the Chernobyl plant, he was admonished to wait for higher-ups to make a decision and for a committee to be formed. Panic and embarrassment were of greater concern than public safety. The KGB cut Pripyat’s intercity telephone lines and prevented residents from leaving, as part of the effort to keep news of the disaster from spreading. Some locals were savvy enough to try to leave on their own. But with no public warning, many didn’t take even the minimal precaution of staying indoors with the windows shut. One man was happily sunbathing the next morning, pleased by the speed with which he was tanning. He was soon in the hospital.
戈尔巴乔夫总书记得到的通知是核电厂发生了爆炸和火灾，但是发生爆炸的反应堆本身没有遭到严重破坏。没人想当这起灾难性新闻的传递者，所以当临时的政府工作人员询问是否警告并疏散普利皮亚特市（修建该市就是为切尔诺贝利核电厂的工作人员提供住处的）市民时，他责备那人并让其等待上级的决定，同时等待一个专门委员会的成立 。相对于公共安全，惊恐以及令人尴尬的局面才是担心之所在。克格勃切断了普利皮亚特市的城际电话线，并阻止居民离开，这样做也是为了防止有关这场灾难的新闻扩散出去。一些有见地的本地人尝试凭一己之力离开， 但是由于没有公开发出警告，许多人甚至都没有采取待在室内并关闭门窗这样最基本的预防措施。有一个人曾在灾难发生的第二天愉快地晒了一次日光浴，并对本次皮肤晒黑的速度感到高兴。此人不久就进了医院。
Moscow officials eventually realized that the reactor had exploded, and that there was an imminent risk of another, much larger explosion. More than thirty-six hours after the initial meltdown, Pripyat was evacuated. Columns of Kiev city buses had been sent to wait for evacuees on the outskirts of the city, absorbing radiation while plans were debated. These radioactive buses deposited their radioactive passengers in villages chosen to house the refugees, then returned to their regular routes in Kiev. Over the next two weeks, another 75,000 people were resettled from the thirty-kilometer area around Pripyat, which was to become known as the “Exclusion Zone,” and which remains almost uninhabited to this day.
莫斯科的官员终于意识到该反应堆爆炸了，并带来了另一个迫在眉睫的危险——放射性物质向更大范围扩散。自反应堆最初熔毁，又过了三十六个多小时，普利皮亚特市终于开始疏散了。但是疏散计划还要经过反复讨论，于是来自基辅的负责接被疏散者的公共汽车列队等在普利皮亚特市的郊外吸着放射性物质。这些带着放射性物质的公共汽车又将带着放射性物质的乘客安置在被选中的乡村农舍里，然后返回基辅继续跑它们的常规公交路线。在随后的两个星期里，又有来自普利皮亚特市周边三十公里范围内的7万5千人获得重新安置。这方圆三十公里的区域就是著名的“禁区”，至今几乎无人居住。
The Soviet system began to marshal its vast human resources to “liquidate” the disaster. Many efforts to stop the fire in the reactor only made matters worse by triggering new reactions or creating toxic smoke, but doing nothing was not an option. Pilots, soldiers, firefighters, and scientists volunteered, exposing themselves to huge doses of radiation. (Many others fled from the scene.) They were rewarded with cash bonuses, cars, and apartments, and some were made “Hero of the Soviet Union” or “Hero of Ukraine,” but many became invalids or didn’t live to see their new homes. The radiation levels were so high that they made the electronics in robots fail, so “biorobots”—people in makeshift lead protective gear—did the work of clearing the area.
苏联开始集结其最大的人力资源“清除”这场灾难。虽然为了熄灭反应堆的大火人们所做的大量努力——比如依靠启动新的反应堆或是制造有毒的烟雾——只是让事态更严重，但是什么都不做是绝不行的。飞行员、士兵、消防员和科学家组成志愿者，将自身暴露在剂量巨大的核辐射中。（还是有许多人逃离现场。）他们被给予现金、汽车以及公寓的奖励，还有一些人被授予“苏联英雄”或是“乌克兰英雄”的称号，不过他们中的许多人要么病了，要么没有活着看见他们的新家。放射物等级已经高到足以损毁机器人内部的电子元件，因此“生物机器人”，即戴上临时拼凑起来的铅护具的人，承担起了清理这一地区的工作。
A few decades later, it seemed to many that the world’s worst nuclear disaster had caused surprisingly little long-term damage. The official toll is now between thirty-one and fifty-four deaths from acute radiation poisoning (among plant workers and firefighters), doubled leukemia rates among those exposed to exceptionally high radiation levels during the disaster response, and several thousand cases of thyroid cancer—highly treatable, very rarely fatal—among children. Pripyat became a spooky tourist site. In the Exclusion Zone, one could soon see wolves, elk, lynx, brown bears, and birds of prey that had almost disappeared from the area before Chernobyl; some visitors described it as a kind of radioactive Eden, proof of nature’s resiliency. But striking differences in new books about Chernobyl by Kate Brown, Adam Higginbotham, and Serhii Plokhy show that there are still many ways to tell this story, and that the lessons of Chernobyl remain unresolved.
几十年之后，这场地球上最严重的核灾难对大多数人而言似乎没有造成什么令人吃惊的长期危险。现在官方通报的死于急性辐射污染的（电厂工作人员和消防员）的人数在31到54人之间，因在灾难发生时暴露在异常高的辐射等级中从而罹患白血病的人数翻了一番，还有数千名患有甲状腺癌的儿童（除了极少数死亡，绝大部分治愈）。普利皮亚特市成了一个气氛诡异的旅游景点。人们一进入禁区就会看见狼、麋鹿、猞猁、棕熊、以及切尔诺贝利核电厂出事之前就从该地区消失的鸷鸟；一些游客将这里描绘成有辐射的伊甸园，自然界自我恢复的证明。不过在凯特·布朗、亚当·希金巴特汉姆和塞里·普罗基写的新书中切尔诺贝利却异乎寻常的不同。书中显示依然存在着许多种方式讲述这个故事，以及切尔诺贝利遗留下来的还未被解决的教训。
Both Plokhy and Higginbotham devote their first sections to dramatic reconstructions of the disaster at the plant. Sketches of loving family life or youthful ambition introduce the central figures, making us queasy with dread. The two authors’ minute-by-minute descriptions of the reactor meltdown and its aftermath are as gripping as any thriller and employ similar techniques: the moments of horrified realization, the heroic races against time. The prescient 1979 film The China Syndrome, about a barely averted disaster at a nuclear plant and its cover-up, is mentioned in both books. The movie’s title comes from a former Manhattan Project scientist’s hypothetical discussion of a reactor meltdown in North America causing fuel to burn its way through the globe to China. Though that specific scenario was clearly impossible, “China syndrome” became shorthand for anxieties about nuclear material burning through the foundations of the Chernobyl plant and entering the water table, the Dnieper River Basin, and then the Black Sea.
普罗基和希金巴特汉姆在第一部分中对发生在核电厂的这场灾难进行了生动的复原。先是用白描的手法讲述几名主要人物可爱的家庭生活、或是年轻人的雄心壮志，不过这让我们因担心而焦虑不安。两位作者又以分钟为单位讲述反应堆熔融以及由此产生的后果如恐怖小说一般吸引注意力，其实他们也运用了与恐怖小说相似的技巧：意识到爆炸那一刻的惊恐，以及具有英雄气概的民族与时间对抗着。1979年曾上映了一部具有预见性的电影《中国综合症》，该片讲述了一座核电厂勉勉强强防止了一场灾难，然后对此百般遮掩。两本书都提到了这部电影。该电影的标题来自参与前曼哈顿计划的科学家们假想的一场讨论：一座位于北美的反应堆熔融了，造成燃料烧穿地球抵达中国。虽然这样的场景很明显是不可能的，但是“中国综合症”却成了一个概述对核物质烧穿切尔诺贝利核电厂的地基，进入含水层，再进入第聂伯河盆地，然后流入黑海的担忧的缩略语。
Plokhy, a historian of Ukraine, provides a masterful account of how the USSR’s bureaucratic dysfunction, censorship, and impossible economic targets produced the disaster and hindered the response to it. Though the Soviets held a show trial to pin responsibility on three plant employees, Plokhy makes plain the absurdity of holding individuals accountable for what was clearly a systemic failure. But Chernobyl could have been worse. The Dnieper River Basin was not contaminated, there was no second explosion, and long-term damage was mercifully limited; eventually the fire burned itself out, and the reactor was covered with a 400,000-ton concrete “sarcophagus.”
乌克兰历史学家普罗基精彩地描述了是苏联那机能失调的官僚、审查制度和不可能的经济目标导致了这场灾难，并阻碍了灾后反应。虽然苏联装腔作势举行了一场庭审，将责任归咎于核电厂的三位雇员，但是普罗基明确指出这很明显是整个系统的错误，却让几个个体负责，很荒谬。虽然切尔诺贝利本来是会更糟的，但是第聂伯河盆地没有被污染，没有第二次爆炸，长期危险幸运地被限制住了；大火烧完一切最终自己熄灭了，反应堆被40万吨水泥做成的石棺封住了。
The radioactive cloud may even have had a silver lining. Plokhy emphasizes Chernobyl’s role in the USSR’s final collapse and in the push for Ukrainian independence, as furious citizens worked to bring down the government responsible for the disaster, its cover-up, and the lethally inadequate response to it. For Plokhy, the greatest lesson of Chernobyl is the danger of authoritarianism. The secretive Soviet Union’s need to look invincible led it to conceal the many nuclear accidents that preceded Chernobyl, instead of using studies of them to improve safety. The memory of Stalin’s purges and the continuing threat of unjust punishment prevented plant workers and officials from reporting problems, while impossible Soviet quotas led plant employees to cut corners and ignore safety protocols. Once the reactor exploded, Soviet censorship kept citizens in the dark about the disaster, preventing them from taking measures to protect themselves.
含有放射性物质的云可能也会带来一线光明。普罗基强调切尔诺贝利在苏联最后崩溃以及推动乌克兰独立中所占的分量：当愤怒的市民想让政府对此次灾难承担责任时，政府的态度遮遮掩掩，对灾难的回应也不合格，而这都是致命的。普罗基认为切尔诺贝利最大的教训是威权主义。苏联总是一副讳莫如深的样子，是因为它需要表现得不可战胜，这就导致它隐瞒发生在切尔诺贝利之前的许多核事故，而不是研究它们以提高安全性。永不会从记忆中消失的斯大林时代的肃清运动，以及持续不断地用不公正的惩罚为威胁，也阻止了核电厂工作人员及官员汇报问题，同时苏联分配的不可能实现的工作配额，让电厂员工做事只图省事从而忽略了安全规程。反应堆一旦爆炸，苏联的审查制度又让市民对灾难懵懂无知，阻碍了他们采取措施保护自己。
When the United States dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the immediate effect was a huge single release of radiation. Radioactive fallout then drifted down from the sky, moving with the wind to distribute a smaller amount of radiation across a larger area. People who arrived in Hiroshima after the attack fell ill, including US soldiers helping to rebuild the city, and the Japanese press wrote about the longer-lasting effects of the “atomic poison.” This infuriated General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, who could not countenance the possibility that the hugely expensive new weapon might be vilified and banned, as German mustard gas had been during and after World War I. Groves directed an effort to use censorship and propaganda to suppress information about the dangers of the radiation emitted by the atom bomb. The US did sponsor a “Life Span Study” of Japanese bomb survivors, which yielded valuable information. But it only started in 1950, too late for comprehensive results, and it only factored the initial blast, not fallout, into its estimates of radiation exposure. This meant that it excluded from consideration potentially radiation-induced health problems connected to lower doses of radiation, such as leukemia, thyroid cancer, diseases of the circulatory system, autoimmune disorders, eye diseases, and increased vulnerability to infection.
当美国向广岛和长崎投掷原子弹时，瞬间发生的不过一团巨大的放射物被释放出来。但是放射性尘埃会慢慢从天空飘下来，也会随风飘移将小部分放射性物质扩散到更大的区域。在爆炸发生之后抵达广岛的人会生病，这其中也包括协助重建这座城市的美国士兵。日本新闻也报道了这种被称作“原子能污染”的长期后果。曼哈顿计划的负责人莱斯利·格罗夫将军对花巨大的成本研发出来的新武器，会像德国的芥子气在一战中及战后的遭遇一样遭到污蔑与禁用，感到愤怒。格罗夫直接诉诸于审查制度和宣传机器，压制有关原子弹喷发出的放射性物质具有危险性的信息。美国对日本原子弹幸存者发起了“跨越一生的研究”。这场研究提供了许多有用的信息。但是由于开始得太迟了（1950年才开始），所以研究结果也不全面，而且它在评估辐射接触后果时只将最初的爆炸作为考虑因素，而忽略了辐射尘埃这个因素。这意味着与低剂量的辐射相关的健康问题，诸如白血病、甲状腺癌、循环系统疾病、自身免疫系统疾病、眼疾、以及逐渐增加的感染易受性，被认为不可能是由辐射引起的。
In 1953 President Eisenhower announced “Atoms for Peace,” a program intended to use nuclear power for medicine and cheap electricity. Soon the cold war arms race was matched by the competitive construction of civilian nuclear reactors. The Soviet Union’s race to nuclear power, like its other industrialization drives, required the over-fulfillment of unrealistic quotas, often using substandard materials and undertrained personnel.
艾森豪威尔总统于1953年宣布实施“和平利用原子能”计划。该计划旨在利用原子能提供医疗服务和廉价电力。不久民用原子能反应堆的建设就追平了为冷战的军备竞赛（建造的核武器）。就像其它驱动苏联工业化的力量一样，苏联的核武器竞赛也需要完成不可能完成的配额，所以经常让未经培训的人员使用不达标的核原料。
In the 1950s the Soviets developed the High Power Channel Reactor (RBMK). They also developed a much safer alternative model, the Water-Water Energy Reactor (VVER), similar to the Pressurized Water Reactors used in the US. But the RBMK won out because it generated twice as much energy as the VVER, was cheaper to build and run, and produced plutonium that could potentially be used in weapons—though it emitted far more radiation and had not been fully tested before operation began. The four reactors at the Chernobyl plant, opened between 1977 and 1983, were all RBMKs. They generated vast quantities of electricity not only for civilian use but also for the nearby Duga Radar system, which had been built to detect nuclear missiles. In 1985 the shoddily constructed Chernobyl plant managed to overfill its production quotas, in part by reducing the amount of time allotted to repairs.
苏联用二十世纪一整个50年代开发“高功率引导反应堆”（RBMK）。他们还开发了“双水能量反应堆”（VVER）这种更安全的替代版本——这个有点类似于美国使用的增压水反应堆。但是由于建造和运行RBMK更便宜，产生的能量又是VVER的两倍，且最终的产品钚（尽管钚的辐射性更强，而且有不实际操作就无法检测的特点）还是潜在的武器原料，所以RBMK胜出。切尔诺贝利核电厂的四个于1977年至1983年间启动的核反应堆全部都是RBMK。这些反应堆产生的巨大电力不仅供民用，也供附近专门监测核导弹的杜佳雷达系统使用。1985年，粗制滥造的切尔诺贝利核电厂设法完成本来就超过其装机容量的生产配额，而依靠的方法之一就是减少分配给停机维护的时间。
The Soviet Union had access only to the published results of the “Life Span Study.” But the rapid development of Soviet nuclear power, and the many accidents that accompanied it, provided extensive opportunities to examine the effects of radiation on the human body. By the time Dr. Angelina Guskova cared for Chernobyl responders, she had already treated more cases of radiation illness than anyone in the world. During years of work at a secret Siberian nuclear weapons installation where she was forbidden to ask her patients about the nature of their work, and thus about their radiation exposure, she learned to estimate radiation doses from victims’ symptoms, and she made substantial inroads in the treatment of radiation-related illness. She helped contribute to the Soviet definition of “chronic radiation syndrome,” which included malaise, sleep disorders, bleeding gums, and respiratory and digestive disorders. Guskova’s findings, like the many nuclear accidents that occurred in the Soviet Union in those years, were kept secret.
虽然苏联只拿到了“跨越一生的研究”的出版结果，但是其快速发展的核能以及与之相伴的事故，都为检验核辐射对人体的影响提供了大量的机会。到安吉丽娜·古斯科娃博士照料切尔诺贝利事故中的伤病员时，她已经是全世界治疗核辐射病例最多的人了。在西伯利亚一个秘密的核武器军事基地工作期间，她被禁止询问病人的工作性质以及如何接触到核辐射的。她学着通过病人的症状估计辐射剂量。在治疗与辐射相关的疾病方面，她开拓出了大量的新领域。她协助定义了苏联的“慢性辐射综合症”。这种病包括萎靡不振、睡眠紊乱、牙龈出血以及呼吸及消化系统紊乱。像那些年发生在苏联的许多核事故一样，古斯科娃的发现一直处于保密阶段。
A 1990 assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meanwhile, was sabotaged by the KGB, which was so desperate to conceal sensitive information from foreigners that it stole a large registry of patient data kept on a single computer in Belarus. (It was never recovered.) According to Brown, the IAEA ended up producing inaccurate estimates of radiation exposure, in part because it grossly underestimated the use of contaminated local products by people living around the Zone—especially berries, mushrooms, and milk. The WHO and IAEA results hamstrung fundraising efforts for further Chernobyl studies, and for medical care and resettlement. Ukrainians and Belarusians were told that their health problems were caused by stress and “radiophobia” rather than by radiation itself.
国际原子能机构（IAEA）在1990年也进行了一次评估，但是遭到克格勃的蓄意破坏。克格勃不顾一切地隐藏敏感资料，甚至偷了保存在白俄罗斯一台电脑中的病人挂号记录。（这些记录再也不可能恢复了。）布朗在书中写到：IAEA最终对核辐射暴露作出了错误的评估，部分原因在于它极大地低估了生活在“禁区”周围的人使用被核辐射污染的本地产品（尤其是浆果、蘑菇和牛奶）的情况。世界卫生组织和国际原子能机构得出的结论打击了为更多的切尔诺贝利研究、为医疗救助以及重新安置筹款的努力。乌克兰人及白俄罗斯人被告知他们的健康问题是因为压力和“恐辐射症”，而非核辐射本身造成的。
One of the most alarming—though also eerily beautiful—aspects of Brown’s book is her description of the way radioactive material moves through organisms, ecosystems, and human society. Of the infamous May Day parade held in Kiev just after the explosion, Brown writes:
布朗在其书中发出的最危险的（虽然也带有令人恐怖的魅力）警告之一是带有辐射性的物质借助有机物、生态系统和人类社会四处移动。对于爆炸刚刚结束不久就举行的那场声名狼藉的基辅“五·一”游行，布朗写道：
The newsreels of the May holiday did not record the actions of two and a half million lungs, inhaling and exhaling, working like a giant organic filter. Half of the radioactive substances Kyivans inhaled their bodies retained. Plants and trees in the lovely, tree-lined city scrubbed the air of ionizing radiation. When the leaves fell later that autumn, they needed to be treated as radioactive waste.
“五·一”假日的新闻短片没有记录250万具吸气又吐气、像一个巨大的有机过滤器那样工作的肺的活动。基辅人吸进他们身体的放射性物质有一半留了下来。在这座绿树成行的可爱城市里，每一株植物，每一棵树都在刷洗饱含放射性离子的空气。当那个秋天树叶凋落时，需要用处理放射性废物的方式处理它们。
Radioactive fallout was distributed far beyond the Exclusion Zone, which was, after all, just a circle on a map. Clouds absorbed radiation and then moved with the wind. Red Army pilots were dispatched to seed clouds with silver iodide so that radioactive rain would fall over provincial Belarus rather than urban Russia. Belarusian villagers fell ill, as did the pilots. Livestock absorbed radiation in the immediate aftermath of the disaster by inhaling air and dust, and later by consuming contaminated grass. Cleaned villages were soon recontaminated by radioactive dust from surrounding areas, and buried material leaked radioactivity into the water table.
放射性尘埃的分布区域远远超出那个只能在地图上呈圆圈状的“禁区”。云朵吸收放射性物质，然后被风吹走。红军的飞行员被派出去用碘化银处理云层，为的就是让含有辐射物质的雨祸害白俄罗斯省而不是俄罗斯城市。白俄罗斯农民和那些飞行员一样生病了。爆炸之后立刻出现的后果是家畜因为吸入空气和灰尘，然后是吃了受到污染的青草，吸进放射性物质。打扫干净的村落很快就会因为来自周边地区的放射性尘埃而再次被污染，被埋起来的放射性物质又会渗透进含水层。
A reluctance to waste food and other basic goods helped keep the radioactive isotopes in circulation. (Radioactive isotopes are unstable atoms that release dangerous particles until they decay into stable atoms of different elements. Although scientists can estimate the half-life of radioactive isotopes, the process of decay at the level of individual atoms is random.) Contaminated wood and peat were burned for fuel in homes and factories, releasing more radioactivity into the air. The State Committee of Industrial Agriculture had 50,000 animals rounded up and slaughtered during the evacuation from the Zone, and their radioactive wool, hides, and meat sent to different cities for processing. Brown’s findings in a Kiev archive led her to Chernihiv, in northern Ukraine, where workers at a wool factory requested the same benefits received by those who had been at the site of the reactor explosion. The workers had held the Chernobyl wool in their hands and inhaled its fibers. Soon their noses started to bleed, and they became dizzy, nauseous, and fatigued. Their managers pushed them to fulfill their quotas anyway. The authorities eventually made some efforts to clean the factory, but they weren’t willing to bury the highly radioactive wool. Instead, it was piled near the factory’s loading dock, waiting for its isotopes to decay. Wool accumulated for over a year, continuing to emit radiation. Meanwhile, the cleaning efforts caused radiation to be released into the surrounding environment along with the rest of the factory’s waste.
因为不愿意浪费食物和其它基础物资，也让放射性同位素传播得更容易。（放射性同位素是一种不稳定的原子。只有衰退成稳定的其它原子，否则它们会一直释放危险的微粒。虽然科学家们可以估计放射性同位素的半衰期，但是单个原子的衰退过程是随机的。）家庭和工厂将受到污染的林木和泥炭当作燃料烧掉，向空气中释放更多的放射性物质。国家工农业委员会在“禁区”疏散期间围捕并屠宰了5万头动物，并将含有放射性物质的羊毛、兽皮以及肉送往不同城市加工处理。布朗在基辅档案馆里的发现指引她来到乌克兰北部城市切尔尼希夫。在该市的羊毛工厂里，工人要求得到与反应堆爆炸地点的工人相同的补助金。这些工人用他们的双手握着来自切尔诺贝利的羊毛，吸入羊毛纤维。不久他们开始流鼻血、感到眩晕、作呕及疲乏。但是管理人员依然强迫他们无论如何要完成工作定额。虽然当权者后来终于做了一些清洁工作，但是他们还是不愿意埋掉具有高放射性的羊毛。他们只是将羊毛堆在工厂附近的码头，等待羊毛上面的同位素衰退。那些一直在向外发射放射性物质的羊毛堆放了一年多。而同时清扫工作又将放射性物质连同工厂的其它垃圾一起释放到周边地区。
Paul Fusco/Magnum Photos
保罗·弗斯科/玛格南图片社
A mother holding a government document certifying that her daughter’s brain tumor was caused by radiation from the Chernobyl disaster, Zamishevo, Russia, 1999
1999年，俄罗斯，Zamishevo。一位母亲手持一纸文件证明她女儿的脑癌是由切尔诺贝利灾难的核辐射造成的。
Moscow agronomists explained how to make sausage with an “acceptable” amount of radioactive meat, and Chernobyl sausages were distributed across the USSR without special labeling. There were instructions on how to salvage contaminated milk, berries, eggs, beets, grain, spinach, potatoes, mushrooms, and tea—often by converting them into products with long shelf lives and simply storing them until the isotopes decayed. This misguided thriftiness was not a uniquely Soviet or authoritarian practice. Chernobyl fallout had contaminated much of Europe. When Italy rejected 300,000 tons of radioactive Greek wheat, Greece refused to take it back; the European Economic Community eventually agreed to buy the wheat, which was blended with clean grain and sent to Africa and East Germany in aid shipments.
莫斯科的农学家讲解如何用“可接受”数量的带有放射性物质的肉制造香肠，然后这些切尔诺贝利香肠被不贴任何特殊标签地送往苏联各地。还有课程教授如何回收利用被放射性物质污染的牛奶、浆果、鸡蛋、甜菜、谷物、菠菜、马铃薯、蘑菇和茶叶。其实方法不过是将它们制成可长期保存的东西，然后储存起来直到同位素衰退。这种错误的节俭并不独见于苏联，也非只有威权政体才会采用。切尔诺贝利的放射尘埃也污染了大部分的欧洲。当意大利拒绝接受30万吨受到放射性物质污染的希腊小麦时，希腊拒绝将小麦拖回。欧洲经济共同体最终同意买下这批小麦，然后把它们掺进干净的谷物中以援助的形式送往非洲和东德。
The difficulty of the cleanup was increased by the fact that the Chernobyl plant had been built in a marshy area, the worst possible type of land for a nuclear disaster. Mineral-poor soil soaked up radioactive minerals, which were then absorbed by mineral-hungry plants. Meanwhile, seasonal floods spread contaminants into pastureland. Tim Mousseau and Anders Møller, biologists who have been studying Zone ecology since 2000, have found that microbes, worms, spiders, bees, and fruit flies still cannot function normally in the Zone, or that they exist in far lower numbers than they did before the meltdown. This means that leaves do not decay at the normal rate, pollination does not occur often enough to produce the fruit that feeds some birds, birds don’t spread the seeds for new plants, and so on.
清除切尔诺贝利核电厂的污染物的困难之所以与日俱增是因为该电厂建在一块沼泽地里。沼泽素来是发生核灾难最糟糕的地形。缺乏矿物质的泥土大量吸收放射性矿物质，然后再被缺乏矿物质的植物吸收。与此同时，季节性的洪水又将污染物扩散到牧场。生物学家蒂姆·毛瑟和安德斯·莫勒自从2000年以来一直在研究“禁区”的生态。他们发现在“禁区”中的微生物、蠕虫、蜘蛛、蜜蜂和果蝇依然无法正常发挥功能，或者换一种说法吧，它们的数量远远低于反应堆熔融之前的数量。这意味着树叶无法以正常的速度腐烂，蜜蜂的授粉无法支撑生产足以喂养鸟的水果，于是鸟也无法将能长出新植物的种子撒播出去，如此等等。
Other researchers have issued a much sunnier picture of post-Chernobyl ecology, but Brown argues persuasively that they are grossly underestimating the scale of the damage, in part because they rely too heavily on simplistic measurements of radioactivity levels. Because radioactivity can move across so many environments and exposure to it can come in so many varieties, individual doses are hard to measure or even estimate, and a full understanding of radioactivity’s effects requires fine-grained observation at many levels over a long period. We don’t even fully understand the process of isotope decay. Biologists originally expected that the ecological half-life of cesium-137 would be only fifteen years; now researchers predict that it will take between 180 and 320 years for cesium-137 to disappear from the forests around Chernobyl, though they don’t yet know why.
