With fears of a possible nuclear meltdown(核反应堆堆芯的熔毁) in Japan building up, evidence has come to light that the nation received warnings over the stability of its power plants from an international watchdog more than two years ago.
As the Telegraph is reporting, an official from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in Decem
ber 2008 that safety rules were out of date, and strong earthquakes would cause a “serious problem” for the power stations.
A U.S. embassy document, by quoting（引用）an unnamed expert, states: “He (the IAEA official) explained that safety guides for earthquakes have only been updated three times in the last 35 years and that the IAEA is now re-examining them. Also, the presenter noted recent earthquakes in some cases have gone beyond the design basis for some nuclear plants, and that this is a serious problem that is now driving earthquake safety work.”
The Telegraph also reports that the government responded to the warnings by building an emergency response center at the Fukushima Daiichi plant designed to resist magnitude-7.0 earthquakes. Friday's earthquake, originally named a magnitude-8.9 shock, has since been upgraded to magnitude-9.0.
Other nuclear experts state IAEA officials had willingly ignored lessons from the Chernobyl disaster to protect the nuclear industry's expansion, reports Bloomberg. “After Chernobyl, all the force of the nuclear industry was directed to hide this event, for not creating damage to their reputation,”Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreyev tells Reuters, before noting that radiation from spent fuel rods（棒）stored close to reactors at Fukushima looked like an example of putting profit before safety. “The Japanese were very greedy, and they used every square inch of the space. But when you have a dense(密集的) placing of spent fuel in the basin, you have a high possibility of fire if the water is removed from the basin.”
小题1: From the passage, we know that ____________.
A．people fear that the nuclear meltdown will possibly become more and more serious in Japan
B．people are becoming more and more afraid of a
possible nuclear meltdown in Japan
C．Japan made no response to the warnings over the safety of its power plants
D．Iouli Andreyev warned Japan not to store spent fuel rods close to reactors小题2: Which of the following is true according to the passage?
A．Japan was warned of the stability of its power plants when they were built over 2 years ago.
B．Safety guides for earthquakes should be updated three times in 35 years.
C．The emergency response centre at the Fukushima Daiichi plant can not resist Friday’s
earthquake.
D．IAEA officials advised Japan to ignore lessons from the Chernobyl disaster.小题3: IAEA officials were willing to ignore lessons from the Chernobyl disaster because they want ________.
A．to put profit before safety.
B．the nuclear industry to develop
C．to protect the reputation of Japan
D．every inch of land to be made good use of小题4:The writer develops this passage mainly by__________.
A．making comments
B．providing facts
C．quoting what experts say
D．analysing what happened
