Authorities combing a remote Australian highway in search of a missing small radioactive capsule found it on the side of the road, after a challenging search compared to trying to find a needle in a haystack.
State emergency officials announced the discovery on Wednesday, six days after the capsule disappeared from a package shipped from an upstate mining site to the capital Perth.
Authorities believe the capsule, containing Cesium-137, a highly radioactive substance, somehow fell off the back of a truck while being transported 1,400 kilometers along the Great Northern Highway.
The disappearance of the capsule triggered a massive search on the highway with units specialized in radiation detection – and warned the public not to approach the capsule, which could cause serious burns in contact with the skin.
What’s the danger?
Experts have warned that Cesium-137 can create serious health problems for humans who come into contact with it: skin burns from close exposure, radiation sickness and potentially fatal cancer risks, especially for those unknowingly exposed for long periods. of time.
Radiation Services WA, a company that provides advice on radiation protection, says that standing within three feet of the capsule for an hour would provide about 1.6 millisieverts (mSv), the equivalent of about 17 standard chest X-rays.
Picking up the capsule would cause “severe damage” to fingers and surrounding tissues, the company said in a statement.
Ivan Kempson, associate professor of Biophysics at the University of Southern Australia, said the worst case scenario would be for a curious child to pick up the capsule and put it in his pocket.
“This is rare, but it can happen and has happened before,” Kempson said. “There have been some previous examples of people who have encountered similar things and suffered radiation poisoning, but they were much stronger than the current capsule that is missing.”
“We are all exposed to a constant level of radiation from the things around us and the food we eat, but the main concern right now is the potential health impact of the person who finds the capsule.”
The Cesium-137 accident in Brazil
A similar situation occurred in the Brazil , in 1987, and directly and indirectly affected hundreds of people. An abandoned radiotherapy device in the city of Goiania in Goiás, was broken and fragments of Cesium-137 spread throughout the environment, in the form of a bright blue powder.
Several sites were contaminated and the source was taken to a junkyard. Unaware of the risk, the warehouse owner distributed the shiny material among friends and relatives, who took it home.
People who came into contact with the radioactive material began to show symptoms of contamination, until the wife of the warehouse owner took the piece to the Health Surveillance Division of the State Department of Health, where it was identified.
Seven main outbreaks were identified and isolated, where there was contamination of people and the environment with high exposure rates. In total, 249 people had significant internal and/or external contamination.
Four of them died, eight developed Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), 14 had bone marrow failure and one person had a forearm amputation.
Source: CNN Brasil
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