劉雲龍：被遺忘的辛亥革命家楊衢雲與謝贊泰

楊衢雲 1861 年生於廣東東莞，祖籍福建海澄（今廈門），名合吉，字肇春，別號衢雲。年幼即隨父到香港，在聖保羅書院接受教育。十四歲在香港進入船廠學習機械， 因意外失去右手三指，於是改習英文。畢業後任教師，之後曾任職招商局及沙宣洋行。興中會 1895 年在廣州的首次起義，以及 1900 年在廣東惠州的第二次起義，均由楊衢雲和孫中山合作策動。

1890 年於香港創立最早的革命組織輔仁文社。孫中山 1895 年自檀香山 返港，經好友尢列等介紹，與楊衢雲和文社成員一拍即合，在中環士丹頓街十三號「乾亨行」共組興中會總部，並推選楊衢雲為會長，負責策劃廣州起義。1901 年被清廷派人刺殺於香港中環結志街52號2樓寓所。由於其親友擔心清廷滋擾，故楊的墓碑沒有名字，只有編號 6348。

辛亥革命一百週年，香港被國共或主流論述「掩埋」的革命人物，也逐漸曝光，包括在 1890 年成立香港首個革命團體輔仁文社的楊衢雲和謝贊泰。楊衢雲後在香港中環被清廷暗殺，由於親友害怕被滋擾，墓碑只有編號而無名字。如今在楊、謝家族後人及作家吳萱人等奔走下，港府當局才宣布會在楊的墓旁立牌，以慰烈士之靈。港產片《十月圍城》張學友飾演的楊衢雲角色，也引起共鳴。

今年是辛亥革命一百週年，兩岸三地眾多紀念活動均環繞孫中山這位標誌性人物作為主題，但近年在熱心人士的推動下，一些曾被國共官方歷史或學院主流論述「掩埋」的革命人物事跡，也逐漸為人知悉，其中香港人楊衢雲、謝贊泰（亦作謝纘泰），以及他們成立的輔仁文社在革命早期扮演的重要角色，近年亦漸為人們重視，香港與中國革命的關係，得以藉著這段歷史的撥雲破霧而重新演繹。

今天香港跑馬地墳場的古老墳墓當中，屹立着一座只有編號「六三四八」的無名墓碑，這座百年墓碑以天圓地方概念設計，四邊刻有青天白日圖案，柱頂給削去一角，寓意墓中人楊衢雲死於非命。楊死後，親友擔心清廷繼續滋擾迫害，沒有在墓碑刻上名字；民國時期，楊的革命同志和親屬多次要求民國政府將楊遷葬黃花崗烈士陵區，但一直未能成事。香港回歸後十多年來，作家吳萱人與楊衢雲的堂姪楊興安等一再致函特首、古物古蹟辦事處和區議會，爭取在墓側立牌介紹楊生平，亦沒有下文。零四年古蹟辦曾向媒體表示會在翌年建牌，但又不了了之，直至今年春，古蹟辦才正式宣布在墓旁立牌，並計劃在六月完成。

吳萱人對亞洲週刊説：「今年是辛亥革命一百週年，古蹟辦無法再拖了，這是香港唾手可得的革命遺跡，有關當局實在沒有理由迴避。」去年電影《十月圍城》以張學友飾演的楊衢雲被槍殺作為故事序幕，吳萱人認為這電影對於港人認識這位港產革命烈士，發揮了很大作用。

多少年來國民黨的官方論述，甚至大陸一些學者所著的近代史書，都以一八九四年由孫中山在檀香山成立的興中會為中國最早的革命團體。從上世紀二十年代開始國民黨便將秋瑾、陸皓東等人作為革命烈士的典型，不但常出現在史書中，也是歷史教科書常見教材，一九四一年國民黨黨史黨料編纂委員會出版的革命先烈傳記，便有秋瑾、陸皓東、史堅如等人，而沒有楊衢雲等早期的革命領袖。馬英九最近接見革命烈士後人，也以秋瑾、陸皓東遺族為主，楊衢雲家族後人便從來沒有如此禮遇。

不過，已故歷史學者唐德剛在他的著作《晚清七十年》卻指出：「一部『中國近代革命史』，是應該從楊衢雲開始寫的」，原因是楊衢雲、謝贊泰與志同道合者於一八九零年在香港創立的輔仁文社，曾是早期革命的主要力量。孫中山一八九五年自檀香山返港，經好友尢列等介紹，與楊衢雲和文社成員一拍即合，在中環士丹頓街十三號「乾亨行」共組興中會總部，並推選楊衢雲為總辦或伯理璽天德（President，會長音譯）。唐德剛說：「事實上（香港興中會）除掉名字外，一切皆是『輔仁文社』的延續；會員們也大致都是楊衢雲的班底。」

興中會一八九五年在廣州的首次起義，以及一九零零年在廣東惠州的第二次起義，均由楊、孫合作策動，兩次革命慘敗收場，陸篏東、史堅如等先後被清廷捕殺。第二次革命更為楊衢雲埋下被刺殺的伏線，當時史堅如炸巡撫署失敗，兩廣總督德壽從史的供詞得知是楊衢雲指使，恨之入骨。一九零一年一月十日傍晚，楊在港島結志街五十二號寓所二樓前室，被德壽僱來的兇徒開槍射殺，時年四十歲。惠州起義，世人皆知史堅如，卻鮮少知道有楊衢雲犧牲的事。

楊衢雲差點湮沒於「主流」歷史中，與興中會／國民黨內的「孫派」人馬對他有意無意的貶抑不無關係。楊衢雲的堂弟楊拔凡在一九五五年寫成《楊衢雲家傳》，但認為時機不宜，到逝世還沒有出版，直至十年前楊衢雲百年祭前夕，楊拔凡兒子楊興安才將其父的手稿整理出版（最近修訂再版），楊衢雲與清末革命的關係才有較清晰輪廓。家傳中不少內容是楊衢雲長女楊錦霞曾耳聞目睹的事，所以史料價值很高。

楊興安向亞洲週刊表示，他相信孫中山與楊衢雲之間並無不和，矛盾主要來自他們的戰友和副手。他説孫、楊關係可從幾件事情看到：首先是廣州起義失敗後，孫流亡日本，楊則輾轉逃亡到南非，後來又到了橫濱與孫會合，光緒二十五年（一八九九年）某天，身懷六甲的楊夫人潘氏忽然臨盆，楊情急下請做醫生的孫幫忙，孫說潘氏是嫂子，他不便接生，但會從旁協助，後來楊在孫的指導下親手接生女兒。楊被殺後，孫在日本聞訊，立即向黨友廣發悼文，替楊的家人籌款。革命成功後，孫從歐洲返國，路經香港時曾與楊衢雲胞姐及次女楊麗霞會面，噓寒問暖，未忘舊友。

國民黨的「造神」運動，要將孫中山描繪成由始至終都是最高革命領袖，楊衢雲在革命早期曾是興中會會長，便難逃被「貶」命運。《家傳》中多次暗示孫的好友陳少白是影響歷史論述的主要人物，而楊的戰友謝贊泰則對孫中山等人並無好感。據《家傳》所載，民國十七八年間，廣州革命紀念委員會招人報告革命史蹟，謝贊泰遂具函列舉楊衢雲事蹟，並請將楊遺骸移葬，但不獲回覆，不久後，廣州黨報作者鄧慕韓「以黨人傳記體式，對衢雲加以誣謗指摘，謂嘗聞陳少白言，廣州首義，衢雲遽通告延期糺天舉事致事敗。又云衢雲被刺，乃初答應清吏，允任道台，受巨款，及後又復反前言，致為清吏懷恨所致，且少白當時曾接孫中山先生函，中有慎防三指（楊少年時意外斷了三根手指）之話」。

替國民黨寫黨史的馮自由更指當初楊當選興中會會長，是因為「謝纘泰等復擁護之，總理不欲因此惹起黨內糾紛，表示謙退，衢雲由是當選」。據蔣介石前妻陳潔如在回憶錄中記述，蔣介石曾不惜以巨款欲收購一張楊、孫與日本友人的合照，照片中楊坐在前排，孫則「以楊的秘書身分」站在後方。蔣介石說：不計任何代價都要取得該照片及其底片盡早銷毀，「如果給人看見我們堂堂中華民國的國父竟居於隨從的地位，那才真叫人難堪」。

楊興安指出，楊衢雲生前要靠教授英語維生，死後妻子兒女生活拮据，根本不可能收受了清吏巨款，可見很多指控都難以成立。他說在當時政治氛圍下，「革命後人不敢講（真相），只有國民黨講，但又沒有證據可以反駁，只能任官方史筆說去，連我父親也講明，他死後才可以出版『家傳』」。然而今天，唯孫獨尊的意識仍深植政界和文化界人腦中，每有人談及楊衢雲在革命早期的領導地位，都難免招來抨擊，以為他們要挑戰孫中山的歷史地位。

最近港府要將位於中環百子里的輔仁文社原址闢做公園，作為「孫中山史蹟徑」一部分，並取名為百子里公園，吳萱人則積極向當局爭取改名為輔仁文社或楊衢雲紀念公園。中西區區議會在五月五日就公園名稱討論及表決，最終以十票比五票仍維持百子里公園的原議。支持原議的議員認為:「這公園在革命歷史上有多方面的背景，用輔仁文社或其他名稱都未必可以帶出這公園的價值。」吳萱人表示，在爭取過程中，發現這麼簡單的事情也可以變得很複雜：「在香港這麼一個小地方，區議會內也有很多不同的政治角力，百年前的歷史事務，都可以抬出很多不是理由的理由，例如有人認為將百子里改為楊衢雲紀念園，會對孫中山不敬，捧楊便等於貶孫。」

吳萱人説：「孫中山的歷史地位無可置疑，不會因為楊衢雲的名聲而被取代的。其實楊與孫是革命手足，分別在於一個英年早逝，一個則完成了建立民國的部分使命。孫死時五十九歲，在中國人來說是高壽，死後有輝煌的南京中山陵，楊死後只有石頭，一根柱，連名字都沒有！」

創立輔仁文社的楊衢雲、謝贊泰，兩家後人即使在民國年代，也一直背負著革命的十字架，在「正統」的歷史論述下和國民黨的威權下，噤若寒蟬，直至近年他們的後人才敢於向媒體發聲，為祖輩的革命事蹟「平反」。

楊興安說，楊衢雲被刺殺後，家屬很淒涼，既家貧亦承受政治壓力，連一張家庭照片都沒有留下。楊夫人潘氏和兒子在民國初年便相繼病逝，長女楊錦霞嫁到廣州李家為媳，中共建政後大饑荒，楊興安父親曾接濟過他們，但文革期間失去聯絡。次女麗霞嫁給澳門周家，她兒子後來在香港新界做花農，楊興安記得小時候曾見過他，當時已屆中年，後來也失去聯絡。

孫中山接生楊衢雲女兒

由孫中山「間接接生」的季女楊秀霞身世最傳奇。上世紀四十年代，震華法師著書記述當時比丘尼的貢獻，將「青根斬斷出虞羅」的楊秀霞生平記載於其《續比丘尼傳卷六》中，法號觀願的楊秀霞事蹟，才不致在人間湮沒。

楊秀霞幼年在香港庇理羅士女書院肄業，但常因病曠課，父親被刺後，因家境蕭條輟學，後來轉投實踐女校修業，校長以她是革命遺屬，免納學金。據震華法師描述，楊秀霞「識解卓絕，秀出常人，每念生父以身殉國，未成碩果，輒為之嗚咽不置，默以木蘭、雲英自期許」。十九歲時母、兄相繼逝世，楊秀霞「煢形踽步，不勝淒涼之感」，「及閱佛教典籍，言理精辟，且有『一子出家，九族超生』之說，心懷嚮往」。她以三年時間，歷訪諸方名宿，請求法要，解悟日深，民國十一年決志出家，在心安寺剃度，法號觀願，其後她曾參訪弘一大師等名宿，回港在香港佛學會任通俗演講，兼義學教授，並仿弘一的《四分律比丘戒相表記》，為比丘尼編制《四分律比丘尼戒相表記》。中日戰爭爆發後，觀願回心安寺任監院，「數年之間，青陽士女，歸信甚多，謂其不但以學識見長，其行苦精修，尤為一般尼眾所不可企及云」。

謝家方面，楊衢雲被刺殺後，謝贊泰、贊業兄弟與洪全福（前太平天國瑛王）、容閎（中國首位留美學生）、李紀堂（香港富商、早期興中會主要財力來源），在一九零三年策劃了一次名為「大明順天國之役」的革命，目的除推翻滿清外，也不無為楊衢雲復仇意味，但這次革命亦以失敗告終，由於策劃者和參與者主要屬興中會的「楊派」及太平天國「餘黨」，與「孫派」無關，所以後來國民黨黨史列舉的「十次起義」，均將這次革命排除。

謝贊泰

謝贊泰，又稱謝纘泰，1872年生於澳洲悉尼，祖籍廣東開平。1887年隨家人到香港，就讀中央書院［即皇仁書院的前身］。畢業後於香港政府工務局内任文員接近十年，又曾為洋行買辦、經理。謝贊泰多才多藝，他是1890年在香港成立的首個革命組織輔仁文社的發起人之一，後加入興中會。他也是香港英文《南華早報》的創辦人之一；同時又是中國第一位飛船設計者，曾設計及製造「中國號」飛船試飛成功。1924年以英文寫成《中華民國革命秘史》一書，書中對孫中山頗多批評。他曾針對列強瓜分中國，繪「時局全圖」，被視為中國政治漫畫的先驅。1938年4月4日病逝於香港。雖然他在早期革命中扮演重要角色，但國民黨的歷史紀錄幾乎沒有他的存在。

弟弟謝贊業在「大明順天國之役」失敗後去了南非。謝贊業的孫女謝愛明説，謝贊業在南非看見大量被騙到當地的華工，感到很震撼，他後來寫成遊歷南非洲記，爭取華工權益，這封給清廷的信件今天仍存放在中國第一歷史檔案館中。

謝家遠離政治

民國成立後，謝贊業與洋商合營輪船公司，一九三三年一月謝贊業在上海獲國民黨當局邀宴，回家後便啞了，送院三天後肝膽爆裂去世。家人懷疑事件與當時上海一份英文雜誌轉載贊泰所著秘史和贊業照片，以及嚴詞批評國民黨當局有關，從此更如驚弓之鳥。謝愛明説：「家裏有條不成文規定：什麼黨派都不入，遠離政治。」

謝贊泰家族後人、北京中央音樂學院退休教授謝愛明多年來積極搜集祖輩的歷史資料，她向亞洲週刊表示：謝、楊兩家都是坦蕩蕩的君子，一心為國為民，「可是百年來有些人一手遮天想把歷史永遠顛倒」，她強調並非吹捧楊、謝，只要還他們在歷史中的真面目：「百年前的香港反清革命，是香港人帶頭的而不是其他人。」

二零零三年，謝愛明經香港長實集團董事洪小蓮介紹，與曾任長實主席李嘉誠中文秘書的楊興安認識，兩位革命家族後人一見如故。零八年謝愛明與楊興安聯袂到心安寺尋找楊秀霞的墓地，住持釋演慧一路陪同。謝愛明憶述：「可惜文革時心安寺遭紅衛兵燒、砸，住持事前已去查實觀願的墓地，帶我們去時只見到一堆亂草，看後心裏很不是滋味。」

零九年謝愛明和家人專程到台灣忠烈祠拜祭了楊衢雲，她説：「雖然就一塊木牌寫上名字，但也算開國烈士中的一分子，而香港、大陸連這個都沒有，很遺憾！」

馬家豪：位於香港青山的紅樓與革命淵源

紅樓是興中會根據地，飄揚「青天白日滿地紅」旗，但年久失修。

位於香港屯門的青山紅樓，是當年孫中山推動革命的秘密基地。紅樓在二十世紀初建成，是一座兩層高的紅磚屋。紅樓擁有人香港商人李紀堂在往日本的輪船上認識孫中山並加入了興中會，其後把紅樓及毗鄰的青山農場捐給興中會使用。紅樓與青山農場位置偏遠而隱蔽，對外交通不便，卻能種植蔬果及飼養牲畜而自給自足，於是成為了興中會革命事業的籌劃地、儲存軍械糧餉的最佳場所。據稱，孫中山與黃興還特意在紅樓旁邊種植三株桄榔樹，取其只有「一條心」之意。但香港嶺南大學香港與華南歷史研究部主任劉智鵬則質疑，孫當時正身處海外，因而從未駐足紅樓。相傳惠州庚子起義、廣州黃花崗之役就是由有志之士在紅樓籌劃，屹立不倒的紅樓是孫中山革命事業的重大見證。

六十年代，香港的親中華民國人士籌集款項，把紅樓與附近地區建為「中山公園」，並豎立「孫逸仙博士紀念碑」及其半身銅像。到九十年代，港英政府在愛國人士壓力下，決定進一步把當地發展成為歷史主題公園以加強維護工作，計劃後來無疾而終。零九年香港古物古蹟辦事處定義紅樓為一級歷史建築物，但由於紅樓未被列為法定古蹟，處於政府管理範圍之外，其荒廢、失修已到達令人關注及惋惜的程度。

香港回歸祖國以後，紅樓作為香港少數能長期公開展示中華民國國旗的地方，在親中華民國人士的心中依然具有標誌性意義。每年元旦及雙十節，紅樓都會有升旗儀式，台灣駐港人員、相關民間機構及親中華民國人士都會齊集高唱中華民國國歌，以紀念孫中山及其革命壯舉。

—《亞洲周刊》二十五卷 二十一期［即 2011年5月29日］

Music Video

I love music videos.



This video is nice, isn't it?

How to entomb a Blown-out Nuclear Reactor?

Lychee Hamlet 荔枝莊

SIDNEY SWEET:

I went there on Sunday, April 24, 2011. It's a campers' paradise. There is a small river running through the camp site, where people get fresh water, wash their food and bathe after swimming in the sea nearby. And a small beach as well... as a jetty where people can go swimming. The water is crystal clear and there are lots of trees offering shades in the sun. The camp site is huge. The trees actually partition the site into small plots where different groups can have their own private spaces. Not to mention one or two local stores where people can buy extra food and other stuff. There's one more thing that's not there at your time. By the sea, it's been turned into a 1.2km long swathe of national geological rock formation park 國家地質公園。What more can you ask for in just one place?

LAICHUNGLEUNG:

I remember the place. I went there with my HS friends. It's a bit crazy.

The Big Bang Theory Theme Song

Barenaked Ladies – The Big Bang Theory Theme Song with lyrics

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait ...
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!

"Since the dawn of man" is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and pangea
See ya wouldn't wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

It's expanding ever outward but one day
It will pause then start to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won't be here, it won't be hurt
Our best and brightest figure that it'll make an even bigger bang!

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating why we're here they're catching deer (we're catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy
It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

Sultans of Swing by Mark Knopfler

An Extremely Efficient yet Simple Rotary Engine to Charge Cells for Hybrid Cars

Britain's Independent Commission on Banking

Beidou 北斗卫星导航系统

Beidou 北斗卫星导航系统, China's second-generation satellite global positioning system, featuring target location, navigation, positioning, timing and even text messaging communication, will cover the Asia Pacific region by 2012. China is accelerating the construction of her Beidou system to move ahead of the three other global navigation satellite systems. The system is estimated to be able to perform regional navigation and target location on the successful launch of the third inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellite at 04:47 on 10 April 2011. The Beidou system is expected to cover the entire world by 2020.

China will break the monopoly of the U.S. GPS system by building the dominant satellite navigation system for the Asia Pacific region, according to Beidou chief system designer Sun Jiadong 孙家栋。

Today's launch of Beidou’s third IGSO satellite gave the system the capability to perform regional navigation and target location, a big step over the current system which covers only China. The upgrade to the third-generation system will be implemented through a tiny chip that Beidou engineers hope to place in every home, car and mobile phone in the region.

With its third-generation version being under construction, America's GPS is way ahead in this field, and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) has recovered from the disintegration of the Soviet Union and is catching up. The construction of the Galileo navigation system is delayed due to a lack of funding from the European Union.

Two NATO Choppers Killed Nine Kids in Afghanistan by Firing Rockets at them!!!

Nine Afghan Boys Collecting Firewood Killed by Two NATO Helicopters

March 2, 2011

When two US Air Force servicemen were killed by a gunman who opened fire on their bus at Frankfurt Airport, the world was outraged and US President Barack Obama condemned it as an “outrageous act.” But only a day before that, on Tuesday, nine Afghan boys aged nine to 15 were killed by NATO helicopter gunships while they were out collecting firewood. This incident didn’t provoke global outrage and wasn’t condemned as an “outrageous act.”

A tenth boy who managed to survive tells the story:

“We were almost done collecting the wood when suddenly we saw the helicopters come,” said Hemad, who, like many Afghans, has only one name. “There were two of them. The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting. They fired a rocket which landed on a tree. The tree branches fell over me and shrapnel hit my right hand and my side.”

The tree, Hemad said, saved his life by covering him so that he could not be seen by the helicopters, which, he said, “shot the boys one after another.”

All the families of these children got was a simple excuse by the commander of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“We are deeply sorry for this tragedy and apologize to the members of the Afghan government, the people of Afghanistan and, most importantly, the surviving family members of those killed by our actions. These deaths should have never happened.”

An excuse very similar to the one below, in both effectiveness and honesty:

Coon 2: Hindsight
Tags: SOUTH
PARKEric Cartman,more...

If the 9 children would have been killed in any Western country, everyone would have known their names by now, they’d have streets named after them, songs written in their memory and maybe even a feature film dedicated to them to show what they’ve been through. But they’re just Afghan children and will be forgotten in a few days, with nothing more than a generic excuse offered for their deaths.

Sad.

The worst thing about this, though, is that nothing perpetuates the endless “war on terror” like slaughtering innocent children.

Snapshots of Japan Disaster

Japan's Quake and Tsunami in Pictures by Los Angeles Times.

US Soldiers Killed Three Afghan Civilians

Der Spiegel published these photos that showed a "Kill Team" murdering innocent Afghans and then posing with their bodies.

This image shows the body of Gul Mudin, the son of a farmer, who was killed on Jan. 15, 2010. A member of the "kill team" is posing behind him. SPIEGEL published just three photos out of the some 4,000 images and videos it has seen. Court martial proceedings against the soldiers involved in the killings are to begin soon.

In this image, a different soldier poses with the same corpse. The US Army on Monday apologized for the behavior of the soldiers involved in the "kill team."

Court martial proceedings are currently being prepared against 12 suspects. This photo of two dead men comes from the collection of one of the suspects.

Correction: The incident depicted in this image is not part of the court martial proceedings against members of the "kill team". It does nevertheless come from the collection of one of the suspects.

佐藤充先生大灾显大爱 20研修生“一个都没少”

图：来自山东的研修生孙燕芳（中）在日本宫城县南三陆町一避难所内 新华社

【大公报讯】大灾来时有大爱！宫城县女川町20名中国研修生受日本公司员工佐藤充的帮助生还，但佐藤充却被海啸淹没，其妻女也下落不明。佐藤充的哥 哥、佐藤水産社长佐藤仁不顾自己家被冲走的悲伤，一晚上都在找山上的朋友借房子，暂时将研修生们安置进去。灾害发生第二天，佐藤仁的第一句话就是：20个 研修生一个都没少！

据新华网日本宫城县16日报道，「要不是这些当地人的帮助，我们早就没了！」来自中国大连的研修生衣亚男和同伴们在宫城县女川町含泪水感激道。

女川町约一万人口，一半左右至今下落不明，记者在这里看到，城镇一片废墟，海岸边堆放几具被海浪冲上来的遗体。一辆日本国营列车被海啸拆成两截，拍 打在离海岸轨道几十米以外的山边。在这样一座受灾惨烈的小镇，近百名中国研修生无一遇难，而很多人能够逃生，是因为身边有给予帮助的当地人。

先助研修生后寻救妻女

灾难发生时，地动山摇，佐藤水産株式会社的20名中国研修生逃到宿舍附近一处地势较高的地方，不一会儿，公司专务佐藤充跑过来，喊「海啸来了」，随 后带她们跑到更高处的神社避难。安顿好研修生后，佐藤充又冲回宿舍楼，试图找寻妻女。但宿舍楼很快被海啸淹没，佐藤充再也没有跑出来。

「我们看到他被迫得无路，在房顶上左跑右跑，最后还是被卷到水里。一开始还扑腾了两下，很快人就不见了，」衣亚男哽咽説。研修生张军燕用相机拍摄下 了整个过程，视频里，女孩们尖叫、哭喊「快跑啊」，却只能看救命恩人佐藤充被海啸无情吞噬。张军燕説，佐藤充的妻女到现在也下落不明。

20研修生「一个都没少」

灾难发生当晚，大雪严寒，研修生们无处可去。佐藤充的哥哥、佐藤水産社长佐藤仁不顾自己家被冲走的悲伤，一晚上都在找山上的朋友借房子，暂时将研修 生们安置进去。平时负责佐藤水産研修生管理的杜华説：「灾害发生第二天，佐藤仁见到我的第一句话就是：杜华，20个人一个都没少！」

冈青株式会社的社长和部长也没有忘记中国研修生，他们第一时间开车将5名研修生送到附近山上。「当晚，社长给我们找了一间山顶的温泉旅馆避难。那时，他们连自己的孩子都还没找到，」来自大连的曹晶説，等情况稳定后，她们又被转移到当地最大的避难所，和几十名中国同胞团聚。

在避难所，研修生们一日可以保证有两到三餐。随受灾信息被外界更多人知道，赈灾车辆越来越多，补给也逐渐充足。「我实在不敢想像如果没有这些人的帮助我们会怎样，」曹晶説，在这场与时间赛跑的逃生中，这些当地人对每一个生命的同等尊重，将让得到救助的研修生感动一生。

-- 新華社

Japan's Nuclear Reactor Safety Systems Failed [Graphics]

Japan's Last-Ditch Attempt to Avert Nuclear Catastrophe

What Happens During a Nuclear Meltdown?

Nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi station in Japan are critically endangered but have not reached full meltdown status. Our nuclear primer explains what that means and how the situation compares with past nuclear accidents

By John Matson | March 15, 2011 | Scientific American Magazine

How does a nuclear reactor work?
Most nuclear reactors, including those at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi generating station, are essentially high-tech kettles that efficiently boil water to produce electricity. They rely on harnessing nuclear fission—the splitting of an atom into two smaller atoms, which also yields heat and sends neutrons flying. If another atom absorbs one of those neutrons, the atom becomes unstable and undergoes fission itself, releasing more heat and more neutrons. The chain reaction becomes self-sustaining, producing a steady supply of heat to boil water, drive steam turbines and thereby generate electricity.

How much electricity does nuclear power provide in Japan and elsewhere?
With 54 nuclear reactors generating 280 billion kilowatt-hours annually, Japan is the world's third-largest producer of nuclear power, after the U.S. and France, according to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Fukushima Daiichi station, which has been hit hard by the March 11 earthquake, houses six of those reactors, all of which came online in the 1970s.

Worldwide, nuclear energy accounts for about 15 percent of electricity generation; Japan gets nearly 30 percent of its electricity from its nuclear plants. The U.S. produces more nuclear power overall, but nuclear constitutes a smaller share of its energy portfolio. About 20 percent of U.S. electricity comes from nuclear power plants, making it the third-largest source of electricity in the country after coal (45 percent) and natural gas (23 percent).

What fuels a nuclear reactor?
Most nuclear reactors use uranium fuel that has been "enriched" in uranium 235, an isotope of uranium that fissions readily. (Isotopes are variants of elements with different atomic masses.) Uranium 238 is much more common in nature than uranium 235 but does not fission well, so fuel manufacturers boost the uranium 235 content to a few percent, which is enough to maintain a continuous fission reaction and generate electricity. Enriched uranium is manufactured into fuel rods that are encased in metal cladding made of alloys such as zirconium.

Reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi station runs on so-called mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, in which uranium is mixed with other fissile materials such as plutonium from spent reactor fuel or from decommissioned nuclear weapons.

How do you turn off a nuclear reaction?
Sustained nuclear fission reactions rely on the passing of neutrons from one atom to another—the neutrons released in one atom's fissioning trigger the fissioning of the next atom. The way to cut off a fission chain reaction, then, is to intercept the neutrons. Nuclear reactors utilize control rods made from elements such as cadmium, boron or hafnium, all of which are efficient neutron absorbers. When the reactor malfunctions or when operators need to shut off the reactor for any other reason technicians can remotely plunge control rods into the reactor core to soak up neutrons and shut down the nuclear reaction.

Can a reactor melt down once the nuclear reaction is stopped?
Even after the control rods have done their job and arrested the fission reaction the fuel rods retain a great deal of heat. What is more, the uranium atoms that have already split in two produce radioactive by-products that themselves give off a great deal of heat. So the reactor core continues to produce heat in the absence of fissioning.

If the rest of the reactor is operating normally, pumps will continue to circulate coolant (usually water) to carry away the reactor core's heat. In Japan the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused blackouts that cut off the externally sourced AC power for the reactors' cooling system. According to published reports, backup diesel generators at the power plant failed shortly thereafter, leaving the reactors uncooled and in serious danger of overheating.

Without a steady coolant supply, a hot reactor core will continuously boil off the water surrounding it until the fuel is no longer immersed. If fuel rods remain uncovered, they may begin to melt, and hot, radioactive fuel can pool at the bottom of the vessel containing the reactor. In a worst-case meltdown scenario the puddle of hot fuel could melt through the steel containment vessel and through subsequent barriers meant to contain the nuclear material, exposing massive quantities of radioactivity to the outside world.

How can a meltdown be averted?
The Japanese plant's operators have made a number of attempts to cool the reactors, including pumping seawater into the reactor core to replenish the dwindling cooling fluid. The Tokyo Electric Power Company has also injected boric acid, an absorber of neutrons, into the reactors.

How does this incident compare with Chernobyl or Three Mile Island?
At present, three of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi station are seriously crippled. Units 1 and 3 have experienced explosions that destroyed exterior walls, apparently from buildups of hydrogen gas produced by the zirconium in the fuel rods reacting with coolant water at extremely high temperatures—but the interior containment vessels there thus far seem to be intact. A third explosion was reported March 15 at reactor No. 2, and the situation there appears direr. Pressure in the suppression pool—a doughnut-shaped water vessel below the reactor—dropped after the explosion, indicating that the containment vessel had been compromised.

In reactor Nos. 1, 2 and 3 water levels dropped enough to leave the fuel assemblies temporarily uncovered; those fuel rods are presumed to have suffered damage. And a fire at a pool storing spent fuel rods at dormant reactor No. 4 is posing additional hazards to the few workers remaining at the site.

Japanese officials initially rated the incident a level 4, an "accident with local consequences," on the seven-tier International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), but Princeton University physicist Frank von Hippel told The New York Times that the Fukushima Daiichi situation is "way past Three Mile Island already." Three Mile Island, the highest-profile U.S. nuclear accident, was classified level 5—an "accident with wider consequences".

At that Pennsylvania nuclear station in 1979 a cooling malfunction combined with worker error led to a partial meltdown—about half of the reactor core melted and formed a radioactive puddle at the bottom of the steel pressure vessel. The vessel remained intact, but some radiation did escape from the plant into the surrounding environment.

The 1986 Chernobyl accident was far more devastating; it rates as a 7, or a "major accident," on the INES scale. In Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, a power surge caused an explosion in one of the plant's reactors, releasing huge doses of radioactive fallout into the air. Two plant workers died within hours, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; 28 more died in the following months from radiation poisoning. The fallout from Chernobyl was widespread, and the health effects of the disaster are difficult to quantify. A report from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation found that 6,000 individuals who were under the age of 18 in Ukraine, Belarus or Russia at the time of the disaster had by 2006 contracted thyroid cancer, "a substantial fraction" of whom likely contracted the disease due to radiation exposure.

Why It Happened?

By Chris Rowan | Monday, March 14, 2011 | Scientific American Magazine

Around 3 P.M. local time on Friday, there was a massive earthquake about 100 miles off the east coast of northern Honshu Island, Japan. Initially calculated to be a magnitude 8.9, it has since been upgraded to at least a magnitude 9.0, which means that this earthquake released around 8,000 times more energy than the magnitude 6.3 shock that rocked Christchurch last month. Either way, this is the biggest instrumentally recorded earthquake Japan has ever been shaken by in human history, and is one of the biggest ever detected: it's up there with the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake, and like that earthquake it generated a large – and extremely damaging – tsunami. It's difficult to believe some of the pictures from the Honshu coast as the wave hit.

Tectonic Setting

Japan is situated in a complicated plate boundary region where three subduction zones meet. Two of these subduction zones run parallel to the east coast of Japan. To the south, the Philippine plate is being subducted beneath the Eurasian plate, whilst to the north, the Pacific Plate is being subducted beneath the North American plate (yes, really: the not-particularly active boundary between the North American plate and the Eurasian plate appears to run through Siberia, down the western edge of the Sea of Okhotsk and through Japan). With all of these tectonic plates jostling against each other, it is no surprise that Japan has a long history of catastrophic earthquakes.

Figure: The location of Friday's earthquake, with respect to the numerous plate boundaries that intersect near Japan. Base map generated by GeoMapApp (http://www.geomapapp.org/)

The Earthquake

Friday's earthquake strongly registered on seismometers around the world, with seismic waves rippling across the North America and maxing out instruments as far away as the United Kingdom. By combining data from the whole global network of seismometers, a picture of how the earth deformed in the earthquake, represented by a beachball-like focal mechanism, can be calculated. The focal mechanism for this earthquake, shown below, indicates compression, along either a shallowly west-dipping or a steeply east-dipping fault.

Focal mechanism for the main shock, and cross-sections of the two possible fault orientations

This is consistent with motion on the subduction interface, or 'megathrust'. Further modelling of the seismometer data has also produced an estimate of both the length of the rupture (at least 300-400 km) and the amount that it moved (10-20 metres or more). GPS stations in Japan - installed to measure the slow build-up of elastic strain in the crust between big earthquakes - show most of Eastern Honshu moving several metres to the east as a few centuries worth of that elastic strain - which pushes the crust in Japan westwards and upwards - was released over the space of a few minutes.

Horizontal movement of the crust in Japan during the March 11 earthquake, recorded by GPS stations (from http://supersites.earthobservations.org/sendai.php)

Even though the initial rupture was 150 km behind the trench where the plate boundary intersects with the seafloor, it seems to have propagated most or all of the way to the surface, producing large, sudden vertical movement of the sea-bed and the overlying water and generating a tsunami.

The rupture appears to have propagated to the sea-floor, generating a tsunami.

If you're wondering why there is some still some confusion over exactly how large this earthquake was, it's because - rather counter-intuitively - measuring the magnitude of large earthquakes is actually more difficult than it is for smaller earthquakes. To estimate earthquake magnitudes, you look at the amplitude of the seismic waves it generates: the larger the amplitude of the waves, the larger the magnitude of the earthquake that produced them. However, in very large earthquakes, this relationship starts to break down, at least for the frequencies of seismic waves that are generally used to produce the quick magnitude estimates: they 'saturate', or stop increasing in amplitude as the earthquake magnitude does. This means that the magnitude estimates for the largest earthquakes will be somewhat underestimated until seismologists look at lower frequency seismic waves, which are less susceptible to this saturation effect.

Friday's earthquake has been followed by a huge swarm of aftershocks (at my last count, there have been more than 250 aftershocks of greater than magnitude 5, and aroun 30 of greater than magnitude 6), as the crust around the rupture zone responds to the large stresses applied by the sudden movement of the subduction thrust. However, there was also some noticeable seismic activity before the main shock: on Wednesday, there was a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in the same region as today's earthquake, followed by a number of smaller magnitude 5 quakes, and three magnitude 6-6.1 events. These were mainly clustered in a region just to the northeast of Friday's larger rupture, and within the much larger cloud of aftershocks In hindsight, these earthquakes were foreshocks of today's main event.

Map showing location of seismicity on 9th and 10th of March (yellow circles) compared to March 11's ~M9 (largest orange circle) and the first 24 hours of aftershocks (other orange and red circles).

However, there was no way of telling this in advance: there is nothing particularly "foreshock-y" about foreshocks beyond the fact that they end up being smaller in magnitude than the main shock they precede. In fact, if you plot the last few days of earthquakes over time, you can see that, on Wednesday and Thursday, seismic activity seemed to be dying down again in the wake of Wednesday's 7.2 quake.

Magnitude of earthquakes (M5-6=small yellow circles, M6-7 orange circles, M7+ large red circles) off the coast of Honshu, 9-14 March.

The Tsunami

Very little of the devastation resulting from this earthquake was from the initial shaking. This is partly because of Japan's stringent building codes. But mainly because any damage from the seismic waves that sent skyscrapers in Tokyo swaying was dwarfed by the impact of the 10 metre tsunami that hit the Japanese coast less than an hour later. Although 40% of Japan's coastline is faced with concrete seawalls designed to fend off tsunamis, they proved ineffective in this case: the wave was just too high, and eventually the seawalls were topped.

The real destructive power of tsunamis lies not in excessive height, but in their wavelength. A normal wave rises, breaks on the beach, and is done within seconds. A tsunami wave rises, breaks, and continues to break for several minutes or more. It is a wave that just keeps on coming…and coming, and if it is higher than beach (or seawall) level, it will encroach inland for kilometres, sweeping all before it.

Satellite view of the coast around Sendai before (left) and after (right) the tsunami of 11 March. Source: NASA Earth Observatory (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49630)

As well as travelling east to strike Japan, the tsunami propagated out into the Pacific ocean, triggering tsunami alerts in Hawaii and the whole west coast of the Americas, from Alaska to Patagonia. For Hawaii and the Western US at least, the damage was minor: the passage of the tsunami was obvious, but the impact of wave heights of 1-2 metres was further reduced by the fact that they arrived close to low tide. However there was more serious damage - and some casualties - in northern California and southern Oregon, where the tsunami and the shape of the coast conspired to produce larger waves.

The Warning for Cascadia

Despite decades of preparation for an earthquake like this, Japan was still overwhelmed by the scale and violence of Friday's earthquake, and the tsunami it generated. This may be partly due to the fact that seismologists underestimated the size of the earthquake that this subduction zone could generate: they were preparing for an earthquake of around magnitude 7.5 – more than 150 times less powerful. The prediction of future earthquake risk is based on incomplete and far-too-short records of past earthquake activity, so it is no surprise that the planet can still give us nasty seismic surprises, as faults that have been quiet or inactive over historical time periods show us the full range of their behaviour over geological timescales.

Over the other side of the Pacific there are similar gaps in our knowledge, but we do know enough to understand that the real risk to the western US and Canada is not from tsunamis generated across the other side of the Pacific, but ones generated on this side. North of the San Andreas Fault, the plate boundary that runs along the west coast is a subduction zone very similar to the ones that run along the coast of Japan, and just as capable of generating large earthquakes. The last time the Cascadia subduction zone ruptured in earnest was around 300 years ago, and geological evidence suggests that the quake itself (probably more than a magnitude 8.5) and the tsunami it generated were very similar in scope and scale to what struck Japan last Friday. And, by any measure, western North America is less aware, less prepared and less protected than Japan was. There is no way to predict exactly when an earthquake will occur, but it is a 100% certainty that eventually the Cascadia subduction zone will rupture. The only question is over the willingness of the societies that live on top of it to face this tectonic inevitability.

Keeping Updated

The ever-growing community of geologists writing blogs and sharing information via Twitter are a great source of information for those who want to go beyond the media coverage. For example, if you really want to understand what's going on at the nuclear reactors at Fukushima, take a few minutes to listen to the interviews fellow geology blogger Evelyn recorded with her nuclear engineer father. Callan Bentley's Mountain Beltway blog deserves a special mention for early, in-depth and comprehensive coverage of the geological story – a comprehensive list of other contributions can be found here.

About the Author: Chris Rowan is a geologist specialising in tectonics, the deformation of continents, and paleomagnetism. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago. He blogs at Highly Allochthonous.

Nuclear Experts Explain Worst-Case Scenario at Fukushima Power Plant

[BOILING-WATER REACTOR SYSTEM: The system's inverted lightbulb primary containment vents below through pipes to a pressure-suppression torus. Once that torus breaches due to overpressure, the secondary containment is all that separates the released radioactive steam from the outside environment.
Image: http://www.nucleartourist.com/]

The type of accident occurring now in Japan derives from a loss of off-site AC power and then a subsequent failure of emergency power on-site. Engineers there are racing to restore AC power to prevent a core meltdown

By Steve Mirsky | March 12, 2011 | Scientific American Magazine

First came the earthquake, centered just off Japan's east coast, near Honshu. The added horror of the tsunami quickly followed. Now the world waits as emergency crews attempt to stop a core meltdown from occurring at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear reactor, already the site of an explosion of the reactor's housing structure.

At 1:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time on March 12, American nuclear experts gathered for a call-in media briefing. Whereas various participants discussed the policy ramifications of the crisis, physicist Ken Bergeron provided most of the information regarding the actual damage to the reactor.

"Reactor analysts like to categorize potential reactor accidents into groups," said Bergeron, who did research on nuclear reactor accident simulation at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. "And the type of accident that is occurring in Japan is known as a station blackout. It means loss of off-site AC power—power lines are down—and then a subsequent failure of emergency power on-site—the diesel generators. It is considered to be extremely unlikely, but the station blackout has been one of the great concerns for decades.

"The probability of this occurring is hard to calculate, primarily because of the possibility of what are called common-cause accidents, where the loss of off-site power and of on-site power are caused by the same thing. In this case it was the earthquake and tsunami. So we're in uncharted territory, we're in a land where probability says we shouldn't be. And we're hoping that all of the barriers to release of radioactivity will not fail."

Bergeron explained the basics of overheating at a nuclear fission plant. "The fuel rods are long uranium rods clad in a [zirconium alloy casing]. They're held in a cylindrical-shaped array. And the water covers all of that. If the water descends below the level of the fuel, then the temperature starts going up and the cladding bursts, releasing a lot of fission products. And eventually the core just starts slumping and melting. Quite a bit of this happened in TMI [Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania], but the pressure vessel did not fail."

Former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) member Peter Bradford added, "The other thing that happens is that the cladding, which is just the outside of the tube, at a high enough temperature interacts with the water. It's essentially a high-speed rusting, where the zirconium becomes zirconium oxide and the hydrogen is set free. And hydrogen at the right concentration in an atmosphere is either flammable or explosive."

"Hydrogen combustion would not occur necessarily in the containment building," Bergeron pointed out, "which is inert—it doesn't have any oxygen—but they have had to vent the containment, because this pressure is building up from all this steam. And so the hydrogen is being vented with the steam and it's entering some area, some building, where there is oxygen, and that's where the explosion took place."

Bergeron discussed the specific power plant in question, the General Electric design BWR Mark 1. "This is a boiling-water reactor. It's one of the first designs ever developed for commercial reactors in this country, and it's widely used in Japan as well. Compared to other reactors, if you look at NRC studies, according to calculations, it has a relatively low core-damage frequency. (That means the likelihood that portions of the fuel will melt.) And in part, that's because it has a larger variety of ways to get water into the core. So they have a lot of options, and they're using them now—using these steam-driven turbines, for example. There's no electricity required to run these steam-driven turbines. But they still need battery electricity to operate the valves and the controls.

"So there's some advantages to the BWR in terms of severe accidents. But one of the disadvantages is that the containment structure is a lightbulb-shaped steel shell that's only about 30 or 40 feet [nine to 12 meters] across—thick steel, but relatively small compared to large, dry containments like TMI. And it doesn't provide as much of an extra layer of defense from reactor accidents as containments like TMI [do]. So there is a great deal of concern that if the core does melt, the containment will not be able to survive. And if the containment doesn't survive, we have a worst-case situation."

And just what is that worst-case scenario? "They're venting in order to keep the containment vessel from failing. But if a core melts, it will slump to the bottom of the reactor vessel, probably melt through the reactor vessel onto the containment floor. It's likely to spread as a molten pool—like lava—to the edge of the steel shell and melt through. That would result in a containment failure in a matter of less than a day. It's good that it's got a better containment system than Chernobyl, but it's not as strong as most of the reactors in this country."

Finally, Bergeron summed up the events so far: "Based on what we understand, the reactor has been shut down, in the sense that all of the control rods have been inserted—which means there's no longer a nuclear reaction. But what you have to worry about is the decay heat that's still in the core—that will last for many days.

"And to keep that decay heat of the uranium from melting the core, you have to keep water on it. And the conventional sources of water, the electricity that provides the power for pumps, have failed. So they are using some very unusual methods of getting water into the core, they're using steam-driven turbines—they're operating off of the steam generated by the reactor itself.

"But even that system requires electricity in the form of batteries. And the batteries aren't designed to last this long, so they have failed by now. So we don't know exactly how they're getting water to the core or if they're getting enough water to the core. We believe, because of the release of cesium, that the core has been exposed above the water level, at least for a portion of time, and has overheated. What we really need to know is how long can they keep that water flowing. And it needs to be days to keep the core from melting.

"The containment, I believe, is still intact. But if the core does melt, that insult will probably not be sustained and the containment vessel will fail. All this, if it were to occur, would take a matter of days. What's crucial is restoring AC power. They've got to get AC power back to the plant to be able to control it. And I'm sure they're working on it."

The Big Shake-up & Tsunami in Japan of 11 March 2011

[USGS COMMUNITY INTENSITY MAP: This map shows the intensity of shaking and damage at 14:46 local time near the east coast of Honshu, Japan's main island, on March 11, 2011. Indigo-blue represents weak to light shaking and no damage. Red represents violent to extreme movement with heavy to very heavy damage. Oranges represent very strong to severe shaking causing moderate damage.
Image: USGS]

Below are some more facts and figures relating to the causes and consequences of the world's fifth-largest earthquake since 1900.

Magnitude, according to USGS: 9.0

Speed at which the Pacific Plate is smashing into the Japanese island arc: 8.9 centimeters (3.5 inches) per year

Speed at which the San Andreas Fault in California is slipping: about 4 centimeters per year

Size of the rupture along the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates: 290 kilometers (180 miles) long, 80 kilometers across

Approximate length of Honshu island: 1,300 kilometers

Years since an earthquake of this magnitude has hit the plate boundary of Japan: 1,200

Duration of strong shaking reported from Japan: three to five minutes

Greatest distance from epicenter that visitors to the USGS Web site reported feeling the quake: About 2,000 kilometers

Distance that the island of Honshu appears to have moved after the quake: 2.4 meters

Change in length of a day caused by the earthquake's redistribution of Earth's mass: 1.8 microseconds shorter

Normal seasonal variation in a day's length: 1,000 microseconds

Depth of the quake: 24.4 kilometers

Range of depths at which earthquakes occur in Earth's crust: 0 – 700 kilometers

Top speed of a tsunami over the open ocean: About 800 kilometers per hour Normal cruising speed of a jetliner: 800 kilometers per hour

Length of warning time Sendai residents had before tsunami hit: eight to 10 minutes

Number of confirmed foreshocks to the main shock: four

Magnitudes of the confirmed foreshocks: 6.0, 6.1, 6.1 and 7.2

Number of confirmed aftershocks: 401

Worldwide average annual number of earthquakes over magnitude 6.0: 150