Australia’s nuclear safety agency has joined the hunt for a tiny radioactive capsule missing somewhere in the outback, sending a team with specialised car-mounted and portable detection equipment.
The loss of the radioactive capsule, which is believed to have fallen from a truck that travelled some 1,400km (870 miles) across Western Australia, has triggered a weeklong search and a radiation alert for large parts of the state.
On Tuesday, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency said it was working with the Western Australian government to locate the capsule. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation also sent radiation services specialists as well as detection and imaging equipment.
The capsule, part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore, had been entrusted by Rio Tinto Ltd to a specialist contractor to transport. Rio apologised on Monday for the loss, which happened sometime in the past two weeks. The truck had travelled from north of Newman, a small town in the remote Kimberley region, to a storage facility in the northeast suburbs of Perth – a distance longer than the length of Britain.
Western Australia Chief Health Officer Andrew Robertson said under strict regulations radioactive material is regularly transported around Western Australia.
“It is extremely rare for a source to be lost,” he said in a statement.
State emergency officials on Tuesday issued a new alert to motorists along Australia’s longest highway to take care when approaching the capsule search parties, as vehicles carrying the radiation detectors are travelling at slow speeds along the highway
Source: aljazeera.com
