10 ms·

In the village of Lia, Georgia, on December 2, 2001, Three lumberjacks discovered two 90Sr cores from Soviet radioisotope thermoelectric generators. These were

In the village of Lia, Georgia, on December 2, 2001, Three lumberjacks discovered two 90Sr cores from Soviet radioisotope thermoelectric generators. These were of the Beta-M type, built in the 80s, with an activity of 1295 TBq each. The lumberjacks were scavenging the forest for firewood, when they came across two metal cylinders melting snow within a one meter radius laying in the road. They picked up these objects to use as personal heaters, sleeping with their backs to them. All lumberjacks sought medical attention individually, and were treated for radiation injuries. One patient, DN-1, was seriously injured and required multiple skin grafts. After 893 days in the hospital, he was declared dead after a fever caused by complications and infections of a radiation ulcer on the subject's back. The disposal team consisted of 25 men who were restricted to a maximum of 2 minutes worth of exposure (max. 20mSv) each while transferring the canisters to lead-lined drums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_acc...

hinkley 6y ago
> The disposal team consisted of 25 men who were restricted to a maximum of 2 minutes worth of exposure I'm trying to figure out how that works. One team moves the crane and the geiger counters near the device, the next team brings in the lead boxes, the next team attaches the device to the crane, the next team puts it in the box and closes the box, the next team checks that the box is working, and then someone else puts the boxes on a truck?
- azernik 6y ago
  Probably something like that. By comparison, for certain areas on the Chernobyl reactor roof where the time limit was 30 seconds, each person would be given a shovel, go out on the roof, throw a piece of graphite off the roof, then go back inside and hand the shovel off to the next person.
- dmos62 6y ago
  The process was described here in detail: https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81061875.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...
  - squidlogic 6y ago
    From the linked report: During the recovery operations, the following steps were taken: (1) The vehicle and container were positioned so the rear of the vehicle was close to the radioactive sources. (2) Two members of the recovery team installed stairs on the vehicle. (3) The recovery team was divided into two groups. The first was positioned in an area located 20 m from the radioactive sources. The second remained beyond that area at a safe distance from the location of the radioactive sources. (4) Two members of the recovery team placed the manipulating devices near the location of the radioactive sources. (5) One member of the recovery team cleared the surrounding area of the radioactive sources. (6) One member of the recovery team collected one of the radioactive sources and placed it into a special vessel. (7) Two members of the recovery team transferred the radioactive source in the special vessel to the vehicle. (8) Two members of the recovery team standing on the vehicle received the radioactive source and placed it into the container. (9) In the event that a recovery team member became unable to complete their activity (e.g. due to the dose received), a substitute person was ready and available. (10) The second half of the recovery team conducted the same actions for the second radioactive source. (11) One person conducted individual dosimetry control for all members of the recovery team and recorded the doses. (12) Two members of the recovery team conducted dose rate monitoring. (13) All actions were led by a team member assigned to give commands to start or to stop, according to the plan. A signal to stop was given to every worker after 40 s from the beginning of each activity, indicating replacement by the next worker. *edit: formatting
    - dmix 6y ago
      Additionally (just skimming) three members received some medical issues: > Following the exposure on 2 December 2001, all three patients exhibited in the first 24h symptoms of nausea, vomiting, asthenia (weakness), headaches and dizziness, followed by cutaneous radiation syndrome (CRS). These early clinical manifestations and anamnesis of the patients strongly indicated ARS of a haematological type for the three patients. Furthermore, Patient1-DN developed transitory oropharyngeal syndrome. The last medical condition is usually found in older people, making swallowing difficult: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oropharyngeal_dysphagia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oropharyngeal_dysphagia Also the PDF has some helpful pictures and diagrams. Looks like both original containers were nearly stacked and sideways on a rocky/hilly path, in a difficult to get to place.
- rfreiberger 6y ago
  I believe there's a video on youtube with this, they used a whistle to signal when to stop and change teams. IIRC it was 2 minutes of exposure, followed by hour of cool off time or something like that. But everytime I hear this story, I got to wonder who would pick up an object generating heat and not question why it's still hot hours later?
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Russian winter. These guys were looking for firewood, for a fire to keep warm. Cold makes people despirate. And, knowing a little of russian rural culture in the winter, i think it safe to say alcohol may have been a factor.
    - passerby1 6y ago
      > In the village of Lia, Georgia It's not Russia.
      - ant6n 6y ago
        Does Georgia not have Russian Winters, or Russian Rural Culture?
        passerby1 6y ago
        No, AFAIK no snow, and very much different rural and overall culture.
  - negrit 6y ago
    People with no education?
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
    "Wondering why it's hot" doesn't necessarily imply "worrying whether whatever makes it hot could be dangerous". If you didn't know that radioactivity can cause heat, and you found a magic hot rock, do you think you'd go "I don't understand this, must be dangerous" or "I have now clue how this thing works but it's really useful, I'm gonna keep that thing"?
benterris 6y ago
Here you can find a detailed report about this event, if you get intrigued as I did : https://www.iaea.org/publications/10602/the-radiological-accident-in-lia-georgia https://www.iaea.org/publications/10602/the-radiological-acc...
- sradman 6y ago
  > Following the accident, it was determined that eight RTGs [radioisotope thermoelectric generator] of the Beta M type had been brought into Georgia in the early 1980s to serve the radio relay system between the Engury hydroelectric station and Hudoni hydroelectric station, which was under construction at the time. These generators were placed in pairs at four substations located in areas where there were no other means of electrical power supply. In these generators, the heat generating elements were 90Sr radioisotope sources with an activity of 1480 TBq and a heat power of 250 W. > After the construction of the Hudoni hydroelectric station was stopped, the radio relay system lost its function, and the generators were left without supervision and control. By the end of the 1990s, the generators were disassembled, with the radioactive sources exposed and removed from their original location. Of the eight 90Sr radioactive sources, only six have so far been found.
dismayedjim 6y ago
So glad Canada plans to litter our country with these soon. They want SMR's in every logging camp, remote community, mine, and so on. Sure they are more dangerous per GW and more costly per GW but they are MUCH cheaper initially so small unqualified companies can get involved. Let the good times roll.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  SMRs are not radioisotope thermal generators.
- lxe 6y ago
  I think SMRs are very different from RTG. SMR is an essentially a small and fairly complex reactor design, like a molten salt reactor. It heats water or other liquid, turns it into steam, steam spins a turbine, just like a regular power plant. An RTG is just a hot piece of radioactive material surrounded by thermocouples that directly convert the heat into electricity.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Just a friendly reminder that nuclear power causes fewer deaths per terawatt hour than any other energy source known to man.
  - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
    ...as long as you completely ignore any catastrophic risk for the next 10.000 years.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      Nothing is risk free. The nice thing about nuclear power is that radiation is really easy to detect, with you know, a Geiger counter. On the other hand, particulate matter emitted by oil and coal plants causes millions of deaths per year, right now. And CO2 emissions from oil, gas and natural gas are bringing us to the brink of an environmental catastrophe.
pininja 6y ago
I happened to watch a short documentary about this yesterday on Plainly Difficult. A lot of great videos on this channel. https://youtu.be/23kemyXcbXo https://youtu.be/23kemyXcbXo
- WatchDog 6y ago
  I've also watched it, and a few other videos on the channel. Frankly, his videos just seem to be minimally editorialized recitals of wikipedia pages. For someone that has made so many videos on nuclear accidents, he seems to have a pretty poor understanding of nuclear radiation and contamination. His "plainly difficult" disaster scale is all over the place, for example, the texas city disaster, which killed >581 people is rated as a 7, while some smoldering garbage at the "West Lake Landfill", rates just below it as a 6.
yreg 6y ago
Was it found out how did two Beta-M type radioisotope thermoelectric generators got to a side of forest road?
- free652 6y ago
  Stolen most likely and abandoned when thieves got sick. >NTV reported that eight such radiothermal generators were brought to Georgia in the early 1980s to power relay antennas during construction of the Inguri and Khudoni hydroelectric plants, and subsequently abandoned. Six of these have now been recovered by Georgian authorities.[5] Despite a search, however, Interfax reported on 24 January 2002 that Georgian police and the Georgian Environment Ministry have been unable to find the remaining two power generators.[5] According to Georgian
throw1234651234 6y ago
Heh, story straight out of the Strugatsy Brother's "Roadside Picnic" right there: Advanced tech (I was going to put quotes around it, but it really is) created by a defunct civilization found by people who see side-effects, but don't understand the functionality at all. This is like those island tribesmen imitating air controller hand signals, because they thought it was magic that summoned supply planes.

hinkley 6y ago

> The disposal team consisted of 25 men who were restricted to a maximum of 2 minutes worth of exposure I'm trying to figure out how that works. One team moves the crane and the geiger counters near the device, the next team brings in the lead boxes, the next team attaches the device to the crane, the next team puts it in the box and closes the box, the next team checks that the box is working, and then someone else puts the boxes on a truck?

azernik 6y ago
Probably something like that. By comparison, for certain areas on the Chernobyl reactor roof where the time limit was 30 seconds, each person would be given a shovel, go out on the roof, throw a piece of graphite off the roof, then go back inside and hand the shovel off to the next person.
dmos62 6y ago
The process was described here in detail: https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81061875.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...
- squidlogic 6y ago
  From the linked report: During the recovery operations, the following steps were taken: (1) The vehicle and container were positioned so the rear of the vehicle was close to the radioactive sources. (2) Two members of the recovery team installed stairs on the vehicle. (3) The recovery team was divided into two groups. The first was positioned in an area located 20 m from the radioactive sources. The second remained beyond that area at a safe distance from the location of the radioactive sources. (4) Two members of the recovery team placed the manipulating devices near the location of the radioactive sources. (5) One member of the recovery team cleared the surrounding area of the radioactive sources. (6) One member of the recovery team collected one of the radioactive sources and placed it into a special vessel. (7) Two members of the recovery team transferred the radioactive source in the special vessel to the vehicle. (8) Two members of the recovery team standing on the vehicle received the radioactive source and placed it into the container. (9) In the event that a recovery team member became unable to complete their activity (e.g. due to the dose received), a substitute person was ready and available. (10) The second half of the recovery team conducted the same actions for the second radioactive source. (11) One person conducted individual dosimetry control for all members of the recovery team and recorded the doses. (12) Two members of the recovery team conducted dose rate monitoring. (13) All actions were led by a team member assigned to give commands to start or to stop, according to the plan. A signal to stop was given to every worker after 40 s from the beginning of each activity, indicating replacement by the next worker. *edit: formatting
  - dmix 6y ago
    Additionally (just skimming) three members received some medical issues: > Following the exposure on 2 December 2001, all three patients exhibited in the first 24h symptoms of nausea, vomiting, asthenia (weakness), headaches and dizziness, followed by cutaneous radiation syndrome (CRS). These early clinical manifestations and anamnesis of the patients strongly indicated ARS of a haematological type for the three patients. Furthermore, Patient1-DN developed transitory oropharyngeal syndrome. The last medical condition is usually found in older people, making swallowing difficult: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oropharyngeal_dysphagia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oropharyngeal_dysphagia Also the PDF has some helpful pictures and diagrams. Looks like both original containers were nearly stacked and sideways on a rocky/hilly path, in a difficult to get to place.
rfreiberger 6y ago
I believe there's a video on youtube with this, they used a whistle to signal when to stop and change teams. IIRC it was 2 minutes of exposure, followed by hour of cool off time or something like that. But everytime I hear this story, I got to wonder who would pick up an object generating heat and not question why it's still hot hours later?
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Russian winter. These guys were looking for firewood, for a fire to keep warm. Cold makes people despirate. And, knowing a little of russian rural culture in the winter, i think it safe to say alcohol may have been a factor.
  - passerby1 6y ago
    > In the village of Lia, Georgia It's not Russia.
    - ant6n 6y ago
      Does Georgia not have Russian Winters, or Russian Rural Culture?
      - passerby1 6y ago
        No, AFAIK no snow, and very much different rural and overall culture.
- negrit 6y ago
  People with no education?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  "Wondering why it's hot" doesn't necessarily imply "worrying whether whatever makes it hot could be dangerous". If you didn't know that radioactivity can cause heat, and you found a magic hot rock, do you think you'd go "I don't understand this, must be dangerous" or "I have now clue how this thing works but it's really useful, I'm gonna keep that thing"?

benterris 6y ago

Here you can find a detailed report about this event, if you get intrigued as I did : https://www.iaea.org/publications/10602/the-radiological-accident-in-lia-georgia https://www.iaea.org/publications/10602/the-radiological-acc...

sradman 6y ago
> Following the accident, it was determined that eight RTGs [radioisotope thermoelectric generator] of the Beta M type had been brought into Georgia in the early 1980s to serve the radio relay system between the Engury hydroelectric station and Hudoni hydroelectric station, which was under construction at the time. These generators were placed in pairs at four substations located in areas where there were no other means of electrical power supply. In these generators, the heat generating elements were 90Sr radioisotope sources with an activity of 1480 TBq and a heat power of 250 W. > After the construction of the Hudoni hydroelectric station was stopped, the radio relay system lost its function, and the generators were left without supervision and control. By the end of the 1990s, the generators were disassembled, with the radioactive sources exposed and removed from their original location. Of the eight 90Sr radioactive sources, only six have so far been found.

dismayedjim 6y ago

So glad Canada plans to litter our country with these soon. They want SMR's in every logging camp, remote community, mine, and so on. Sure they are more dangerous per GW and more costly per GW but they are MUCH cheaper initially so small unqualified companies can get involved. Let the good times roll.

pfdietz 6y ago
SMRs are not radioisotope thermal generators.
lxe 6y ago
I think SMRs are very different from RTG. SMR is an essentially a small and fairly complex reactor design, like a molten salt reactor. It heats water or other liquid, turns it into steam, steam spins a turbine, just like a regular power plant. An RTG is just a hot piece of radioactive material surrounded by thermocouples that directly convert the heat into electricity.
arcticbull 6y ago
Just a friendly reminder that nuclear power causes fewer deaths per terawatt hour than any other energy source known to man.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  ...as long as you completely ignore any catastrophic risk for the next 10.000 years.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Nothing is risk free. The nice thing about nuclear power is that radiation is really easy to detect, with you know, a Geiger counter. On the other hand, particulate matter emitted by oil and coal plants causes millions of deaths per year, right now. And CO2 emissions from oil, gas and natural gas are bringing us to the brink of an environmental catastrophe.

pininja 6y ago

I happened to watch a short documentary about this yesterday on Plainly Difficult. A lot of great videos on this channel. https://youtu.be/23kemyXcbXo https://youtu.be/23kemyXcbXo

WatchDog 6y ago
I've also watched it, and a few other videos on the channel. Frankly, his videos just seem to be minimally editorialized recitals of wikipedia pages. For someone that has made so many videos on nuclear accidents, he seems to have a pretty poor understanding of nuclear radiation and contamination. His "plainly difficult" disaster scale is all over the place, for example, the texas city disaster, which killed >581 people is rated as a 7, while some smoldering garbage at the "West Lake Landfill", rates just below it as a 6.

yreg 6y ago

Was it found out how did two Beta-M type radioisotope thermoelectric generators got to a side of forest road?

free652 6y ago
Stolen most likely and abandoned when thieves got sick. >NTV reported that eight such radiothermal generators were brought to Georgia in the early 1980s to power relay antennas during construction of the Inguri and Khudoni hydroelectric plants, and subsequently abandoned. Six of these have now been recovered by Georgian authorities.[5] Despite a search, however, Interfax reported on 24 January 2002 that Georgian police and the Georgian Environment Ministry have been unable to find the remaining two power generators.[5] According to Georgian

throw1234651234 6y ago

Heh, story straight out of the Strugatsy Brother's "Roadside Picnic" right there: Advanced tech (I was going to put quotes around it, but it really is) created by a defunct civilization found by people who see side-effects, but don't understand the functionality at all. This is like those island tribesmen imitating air controller hand signals, because they thought it was magic that summoned supply planes.