Directions: After
reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and
grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank
with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that
best fits each blank.
On the afternoon of 11 March 2011, Tetsu
Nozaki watched helplessly as a wall of water {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(crash) into his boats in Onahama, a
small fishing port on Japan's Pacific coast.
{#blank#}2{#/blank#}(spend) the past eight years
rebuilding, the Fukushima fishing fleet is now confronting yet another menace —
the increasing likelihood {#blank#}3{#/blank#} the nuclear plant's operator, Tokyo
Electric Power (TEPCO), will dump huge quantities of radioactive water into the
ocean.
"We strongly oppose any plans to discharge
the water into the sea," Nozaki, head of Fukushima prefecture's federation
of fisheries cooperatives, told the Guardian.
Currently, just over one million tonnes of
contaminated water is held in almost 1, 000 tanks at Fukushima Daiichi, but the
utility has warned that it will run out of space by the summer of 2022.
{#blank#}4{#/blank#}(release) the wastewater into the sea would
also anger South Korea, adding to pressure on diplomatic ties.
Seoul, which has yet to lift an import ban
on Fukushima seafood {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(introduce) in 2013, claimed last week
that discharging the water would pose a "grave threat" {#blank#}6{#/blank#} the marine environment — a charge
rejected by Japan.
Japanese Government officials say they
won't make a decision {#blank#}7{#/blank#} they have received a report from an
expert panel, but there are strong indications that dumping is preferred over
other options {#blank#}8{#/blank#} vaporising, burying or storing the
water indefinitely.
Critics say the government is reluctant {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(support) the dumping option for fear
of creating fresh controversy over Fukushima during the Rugby World Cup,{#blank#}10{#/blank#} starts this week, and the buildup to
the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
