最黑暗的時刻

????2011年3月15日拂曉，東京電力公司總裁清水正孝坐在公司轎車的后座上，穿過異常冷清的東京街頭。這時離日本發生里氏9.0級大地震已經過去3天了，一系列海嘯使日本東北部遭受嚴重破壞。日本歷史上從來沒有一次災難可以與這一次相比。不過對于清水正孝來說，他的危機才剛剛開始。

????他正急匆匆地趕往日本首相菅直人的辦公室。菅直人此時正在大發雷霆：地震和海嘯帶來的災難已經非常慘重了，但現在日本又面臨著人類有史以來最大的核危機。此時在東京電力公司的核島第一核電站，巨大的氫氣爆炸已經損壞了三座反應堆中的兩座，目前正向大氣中釋放危險水平的放射性物質。（該核電站的其它三座反應堆在事故時幸好因為例行維護而沒有開機）。這三座反應堆中的核燃料似乎正在熔毀。

????而在位于東京以北約160英里的福島第一核電站，那里的場景簡直就是一部末日電影。破損的反應堆不斷竄出小火苗，釋放出大量濃煙和水蒸汽。由于輻射水平過高，連位于5公里外的應急指揮中心也不得不緊急疏散。不過令人驚訝地是，雖然建設這座應急指揮中心初衷就是作為發生緊急核事故時的備援操作中心，但它卻并沒有設計成抗幅射的建筑。

????在這痛苦的三天里，福島第一核電站的情況日益惡化。而東京電力公司——至少是東電的高層，依然沒有拿出任何能夠控制事態的辦法。

????日本前首相菅直人（于去年八月辭職）告訴《財富》（Fortune），當時東京電力公司打電話給內閣經貿大臣，說東電想要把人員全部撤離福島第一核電站。這等于東電徹底承認了自己的失敗，這不免立即令人聯想起核電站熔毀的可怕畫面。換句話說，這可能造成大量人員傷亡。清水正孝也打電話給菅直人的內閣官房長官，堅持道：“我們守不住了！”眾議院議員細野豪志（后來成了主持日核危機的“核問題擔當大臣”）打電話給福島第一核電站站長吉田雅夫，問他是否也認為需要拋棄福島第一核電站。吉田似乎頂住了清水正孝的壓力，他說：“我們還可以堅持，不過我們需要武器，比如高壓水泵。”

????自從核泄露發生以來，由于缺乏關于核危機狀況的可靠信息，菅直人越來越焦急。他說當時的情況就像在“玩電話游戲。”15日凌晨四點，他命人打電話給清水正孝，要他來自己的辦公室。

The Darkest Hours

????In the wee hours of the morning of March 15, 2011 TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu sat in the back of his company car, threading his way through the deserted streets of Tokyo. It had been three days since a massive earthquake—9.0 on the Richter scale—and a series of tsunamis had utterly devastated northeastern Japan. No natural disaster had ever been greater, but for Shimizu, whose company operated the massive Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, an epic crisis had only begun.

????He had been summoned to the office of Naoto Kan, then Prime Minister of Japan. Kan was furious: As horrific as the damage from the quake and tsunami was, Japan now faced the prospect of the worst nuclear accident in human history. At TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi power station, massive hydrogen explosions had already damaged two of the three reactors that had been operating on March 11, releasing dangerous levels of radiation into the atmosphere. (The three other reactors at the power station had offline at the time for routine maintenance.) The nuclear fuel in the three reactors that were operating appeared to be melting down.

????The scene at the plant site, about 160 miles northeast of Tokyo, was nothing short of apocalyptic: small fires blazed at the damaged reactors, the smoke mixing with the steam that they were releasing. Radiation levels would eventually spike so high that the plant's emergency off-site center five kilometers away had to be evacuated; astonishingly, the building was not designed to withstand elevated radiation levels, even though its precise purpose was to serve as a backup operations center during a nuclear emergency.

????For three agonizing days, conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi site had been steadily deteriorating; and TEPCO, at least in the eyes of senior government officials, had not given any sign of being able to get control of the situation.

????To the contrary, former Prime Minister Kan (he resigned in August) tells Fortune that the TEPCO called Tokyo's minister of economy, trade and industry and told him TEPCO wanted to withdraw from the site completely—a staggering admission of defeat that immediately conjured up images of an uncontained nuclear meltdown; a worst case scenario, in other words, of potentially lethal proportions.?Shimizu also called Kan's chief cabinet secretary, insisting: "We cannot hold onto the site!"

????At roughly the same time, Goshi Hosono, who would become the Japanese government's point man during the nuclear crisis, called TEPCO's on site plant manager, Masao Yoshida, and asked if he too thought Fukushima Daiichi needed to be abandoned. Yoshida appeared to push back against Shimizu, his boss, saying, "we can still hold on, but we need weapons, like a high-pressure water pump."

????Kan had been increasingly frustrated by the lack of what he felt was reliable information about the state of the nuclear crisis since its onset; he compared it to "playing the telephone game." At 4 a.m., he ordered an aide to call Shimizu back and instruct him to come to his office.