A mysterious radioactive capsule found, Australia relieved

• A tiny, dangerously radioactive capsule that fell from a mining giant Rio Tinto's truck on a remote road in the Australian Outback in mid-January was found on the side of the road near the isolated town of Newman on Wednesday.

• The capsule had been lost during transport to a mine near the town of Newman.

  His disappearance went unnoticed until the end of the month, before Rio Tinto said it was "sorry" and claimed to have launched an internal investigation.

• What did this capsule contain?

  How was she lost?

  What are the health risks for Australians?

  20 Minutes takes stock

For a week, she had been feverishly sought after.

Fallen from a truck on January 12, on an isolated road in the Australian Outback, a very small dangerously radioactive capsule has finally been found, announced the Australian authorities.

What did this capsule contain?

How was she lost?

What health risks ?

We summarize the story of this mysterious radioactive capsule.

What happened ?

The challenge proposed to the Australian authorities was tough.

Their mission?

Find a silver cylinder, with tiny measurements (8 mm by 6 mm) on a long section of 1,400 kilometers, between a mine near the town of Newman belonging to the Rio Tinto group, and the northern suburbs of Perth.

The capsule contained Cesium 137, an artificially produced substance with a high radioactive power.

On Wednesday, after six days of searching and scouring several hundred miles of highway, one of the many search vehicles mobilized detected anomalous radiation near the town of Newman.

The Australian authorities thus got their hands on the capsule, which had been lost on the side of the road since mid-January but whose disappearance was only reported at the end of the month.

Authorities in Australia are grappling with the daunting task of searching an area larger than the length of Great Britain for a tiny radioactive capsule that mining company Rio Tinto said had been lost during transportation https://t.co/8gjdtAvd95 pic.twitter.com /0GfAQnBahL

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 1, 2023

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" This is a good thing.

As I said, it was clearly a needle in a haystack that was found and I believe the people of Western Australia will be able to sleep better tonight,” Minister Steve Dawson told reporters. Australian state emergency services.

Where does the capsule come from?

What is it for ?

The Cesium 137 capsule was lost after being transported from an iron mine near Newman, operated by mining giant Rio Tinto.

As the BBC reports, vibrations during transport may have caused the bolts to come loose and the small container, which is full of hazardous materials, to fall over.

“The radioactive properties of Cesium 137 make it possible to characterize a material which is not radioactive but whose density we want to know (Editor’s note: here, iron ore).

It is frequently used by public works companies, ”explains Yann Billarand, deputy director of health at the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), interviewed by

.

"I would like to apologize to the entire Western Australian community for the concern that has been raised," Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Simon Trott said in a statement.

However, the mining group specifies that it has used the services of a company “having the appropriate expertise and certification to safely package the device for transport”.

An investigation has been opened.

What potential health hazards?

In principle, this type of capsule is wrapped in lead protection, “to reduce the radioactive nature of the source”, specifies Yann Billarand.

If the container had been picked up, handling it could have resulted in burns, skin damage or acute radiation syndrome, as reported by the BBC.

“Exposure to minute amounts of this metal is equivalent to receiving 10 X-rays in an hour and the amount of natural radiation we would receive in a year from walking around,” warned Andrew Robertson, health officer in Australia- Western.

During the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, about 26 kilos of Cesium 137 were released, which caused three quarters of the radioactive impact, as shown by Alternatives Economiques.

In Fukushima, Japan, the damage to the environment caused by this substance was significant after the nuclear accident of March 2011: scientific studies have shown that the surrounding forests were full of this harmful product. 

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