雅思阅读材料：Japan's nuclear crisis_雅思英语阅读

雅思阅读材料：Japan's nuclear crisis

　　It wasnt. Radioactive fuel rods in one of the stricken Fukushima nuclear reactors, the official spokesman admitted, were now fully exposed, at risk of meltdown, and radiation had escaped into the atmosphere. Ninety per cent of the plants own staff were evacuated, leaving only a skeleton team fighting off catastrophe. Most serious of all, an explosion the previous day the plants third might have damaged a reactor containment vessel.

　　The containment vessels are the last barriers between the reactors cores and the outside world, the very things the government has spent the last several days promising will protect us. A few hours later, the chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, appeared on television.

　　Now we are talking about levels that can impact human health. I would like all of you to embrace this information calmly, he said. But the beads of sweat were clearly visible on his own brow.

　　By that point, however, I, and a good part of the population of the district around Koriyama, the major town closest to the stricken plant, were getting out. Mr Edano was telling us to stay indoors and keep our windows closed. But old habits of deference to authority were breaking down after days of conflicting and partial information, evacuations and evasions. Many were taking matters into their own hands.

　　Koriyamas own station has been closed for days, but the word was that there were still a few trains, for the moment, at Nasushiobara, 25 miles away. In another humbling example of Japanese kindness and hospitality, the family I stayed with on Monday night decided to use some of their precious petrol to drive me there and would accept no payment. We joined a line of cars heading south.