4 ms·
My guess is it'll eventually be traced back to improperly disposed of Cs-137 source. This wouldn't be the first time [1] [2]. There was also a famous case in t
by Sanzig 1y ago
My guess is it'll eventually be traced back to improperly disposed of Cs-137 source. This wouldn't be the first time [1] [2].
There was also a famous case in the 80s where a scrapyard in Mexico sent some steel contaminated with Cobalt-60 to a foundry where it was melted down into rebar. It was detected when a truck transporting rebar to a construction site took a wrong turn and ended up at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where it triggered contamination alarms. By that point, the rebar had been used in a whole bunch of construction that had to get torn down.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acerinox_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acerinox_accident
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez_cobalt-60_contamination_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez_cobalt-60_c...
- SeanAnderson 1y agoWow, what a lucky fluke to have caught it. Makes me wonder how much construction material has contaminated materials in it that go undetected.
- moltar 1y agoSo much that in post Soviet countries it’s common to bring a Geiger counter to buy real estate. Usually the contamination is from natural sources like stone quarry that hasn’t been properly inspected.
- Gibbon1 1y agoThere was the Kramatorsk radiological accident in the Soviet Union (Ukraine) where a cesium 137 source used at a gravel quarry was lost. Ended up in the wall of an apartment. Four people died of leukemia over 9 years.
- mkfs 1y agoYou should know that Mexican steel was circumspect for years after this, with shipments regularly being checked at the border for contamination.
- orbital-decay 1y agoNo need to go that far back, Wikipedia lists seven incidents just in 2020s. It happens pretty often, although sources are usually not that powerful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incident...
- duskwuff 1y agoThere's another incident, not appearing on that list, which seems like a plausible candidate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prachin_Buri_radiation_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prachin_Buri_radiation_inciden...
- N19PEDL2 1y agoAnother similar case occurred in Ukraine in the 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...