After a six-day search along Australia’s Great Northern Highway, crews on Wednesday found a capsule containing radioactive cesium, used in mining gauges.
The capsule went missing sometime between Jan. 12, when the packaged capsule left a mine owned by Rio Tinto, and Jan. 16, when it was scheduled to be delivered to a storage facility in Perth, the state’s capital. The component was not found to be missing from the mining gauge until Jan. 25.
The gauge was broken apart, with a number of screws and bolts missing. Authorities inferred that the capsule fell out of the truck it was on after vibrations loosened the bolts and screws.
On Wednesday at 11:13 a.m. local time, a search car picked up radiation from the capsule, which was 2 meters off the road near the Rio Tinto mine where it originated.
“We have essentially found the needle in the haystack. When you consider the challenge of finding an object smaller than a 10-cent coin along [an 870-mile] stretch of Great Northern Highway, it is a tremendous result,” Western Australia Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm said in an announcement.
The capsule did not appear to have moved after the fall and was not close enough to local communities to pose a health risk, Western Australia Chief Health Officer Andrew Robertson said, according to CNN. “It’s encased in stainless steel, so it’s unlikely that, unless there’s been substantial damage to the actual source itself, which is unlikely from a fall from the back of a truck, that there will be any contamination in the area.”
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Prolonged exposure to the cesium inside the capsule does pose a radioactive risk; an hour near the cesium is equivalent to having 10 X-rays done in the same time span. A safety zone of more than 65 feet was set up around the capsule once it was found to minimize exposure.
Authorities are mulling possible legal consequences.
“We have the ability to prosecute under the Radiation Safety Act and we will certainly look at such prosecutions, and we’ve done that in the past,” Mr. Robertson said, according to The Associated Press.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was aghast at the mildness of the fine under law, 1,000 Australian dollars, which converts to $708.
“It shouldn’t have been lost, that’s the first thing. And second, yeah of course that figure is ridiculously low. But I suspect that it’s ridiculously low because people didn’t think that such an item would be lost,” Mr. Albanese said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Rio Tinto expressed gratitude to search crews and contrition to the wider community of western Australia, and stressed that its procedures would be reviewed.
“This sort of incident is extremely rare in our industry, which is why we need to investigate it thoroughly and learn what we can to ensure it doesn’t happen again. … We will be assessing whether our processes and protocols, including the use of specialist contractors to package and transport radioactive materials, are appropriate,” Simon Trott, chief executive of iron ore at Rio Tinto, said in a company announcement.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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