Radiation leakage in Delhi panics Indian nuclear establishment

[Fighter488]

Radiation leakage in Delhi panics Indian nuclear establishment ​

New Delhi, April 10 (APP): The discovery of at least nine very powerful Cobalt-60 sources of nuclear radiation, which have fatally infected five persons in a West Delhi industrial area, has sent shock waves among the local population as well as nuclear establishment in India. Experts fear that many more people might have been exposed to strong radiation and would be in need of immediate medical attention.



According to media reports, panic gripped Mayapuri industrial locality after news broke out that exposure to a ‘mysterious shining object’ had resulted into emergence of strange symptoms in the owner of a scrap shop who was admitted to hospital on April 4.
India’s scientific community was alerted once the doctors diagnosed symptoms as a result of exposure to strong doses of nuclear radiation.

Nuclear and medical experts from Bhabha Atomic Research Center and the Narora Atomic Power Plant in Uttar Pradesh were rushed to the site to scan the area and help doctors confirm the diagnosis.
Cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope of Cobalt was confirmed as the source of radiation.

According to the experts this is not the first incident where radioactive material has found its way to unauthorized places in India raising the specter of it being used in nuclear terrorism. Security at Indian nuclear facilities has been breached time and again when nuclear material was stolen from nuclear installations. As late as Nov 2000 Indian police seized 57 pounds of Uranium and arrested two persons for illicit trafficking of radioactive material.

Lack of security at the Indian nuclear plants was underscored recently when on Nov 25 2009 some rogue elements at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka, laced the drinking water with Tritium , contaminating at least 90 employees.

Death of a nuclear scientist under mysterious circumstances at Kaiga in Jun 2009 has further raised the issue of security of personnel at the highly sensitive nuclear reactors of India , particularly those chosen to remain outside of the IAEA scrutiny.

The discovery of clandestine radioactive material in Delhi only serves to highlight the poor state of affairs at the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the authority for controlling the security of radioactive material in India, say analysts.


Associated Press Of Pakistan ( Pakistan's Premier NEWS Agency ) - Radiation leakage in Delhi panics Indian nuclear establishment

 

[Fighter488]

Radiation victims critical, bone marrow damaged​

Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, April 10, 2010

First Published: 15:35 IST(10/4/2010)
Last Updated: 15:36 IST(10/4/2010)



The condition of five people who were exposed to radioactive material Cobalt 60 at a scrap market here is very critical and their bone marrow is significantly damaged, their doctors said on Saturday.

Scrap metal dealer Deepak Jain suffered severe burns and is battling for life at the Indraprashtha Apollo Hospital while four others -- Gaurav, Rajendra Prasad, Ramjee Yadav and Ram Kalab -- have been admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Trauma Centre.

"We are investigating the patients and several tests have been conducted on them. They may need bone marrow transplants but confirmation of this will only emerge in a day or two," a senior doctor at the AIIMS Trauma Centre said.

A senior official at the Indraprashtha Apollo Hospital said that Jain continues to be in a critical condition since the day of his admission.

"We are keeping a close tab on his health and have been updating atomic energy experts of the government of India," the official said.

The radiation was caused by exposure to radioactive material Cobalt 60. It is a hard, brittle and shiny metallic element found associated with nickel, silver, lead, copper and iron ore. It resembles nickel and iron.

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) had received information from the Indraprashtha Apollo Hospital that Jain, who owns a scrap metal shop in Mayapuri, was showing symptoms of suspected exposure to radiation.

Jain's body turned black after he touched the material, according to eyewitnesses.

The Crisis Management Group in the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was activated and a team of officers from DAE and AERB was sent to New Delhi with a wide range of radiation monitoring and detecting equipment for prompt identification and recovery of the radioactive pieces and their safe disposal.

On its visit to the site, the team monitored the radiation levels at various positions at the scrap shop and in the adjoining areas.

"Such materials are used in industry for radiography, nucleonic gauges for thickness measurement and in medical applications," a DEA official said.

The source of radiation was located and was then shielded with locally available steel scrap to reduce the radiation level in the surrounding. The area was then sanitised.

Radiation victims critical, bone marrow damaged- Hindustan Times

 

[Fighter488]

Police in dark over origin of Cobalt-60 in Delhi​

PTISunday, April 11, 2010 20:40 IST


New Delhi: Police is yet to trace the origin of Cobalt-60, the radioactive material that caused serious injuries to six persons and are awaiting the recovery of the owner of the scrap shop from where it was found three days ago to get more clarity.

"There is nothing concrete. We are waiting for Deepak Jain to regain his health. We are also waiting for reports from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and other agencies," deputy commissioner of police (West) Sharad Aggarwal told PTI.

The official said nobody knew from where Jain had bought it. "Normally, scrap dealers never makes public their source of scrap as it will affect their business. So, nobody knows from where he bought it," he said.

Police had yesterday spoke to scrap dealers in the industrial area to ascertain the source of the material.

AERB experts, along with Department of Atomic Energy scientists, had yesterday safely removed eight bunches of metal scraps containing sources of Cobalt-60 radioactive isotope from the West Delhi shop and transported the material to the Narora Atomic Power Station in Uttar Pradesh.

AERB has said its probe into the source of Cobalt-60 pieces may help the Delhi Police trace the route through which it landed in the shop.

"Investigations are now in progress to ascertain the source of the radioactive cobalt-60, which was recovered from the scrap in a shop in Mayapuri," SA Hussain, head of Radiological Safety division of AERB, said.

Jain suffered severe burns and is battling for life at the Apollo Hospital while five others -- Gaurav, Rajendra Prasad, Ramjee Yadav, Ram Kalap and Himanshu Jain -- have been admitted to AIIMS.

All of them have been kept in an isolation ward.

Police in dark over origin of Cobalt-60 in Delhi - dnaindia.com

 

[Fighter488]

This is a very serious issue. How come this radio-active material is left un-accounted. It proved fatal for these scrap dealers. Government must investigate this issue thoroughly, as a possible simmiler situation carries a potential of xploitations by terrorists.

Fighter

 

[Creder]

er if im not wrong Cobalt-60 is used in cancer treatment and food preservation so i dont know if this really is a case of security breach as far as nukes are concerned. It seems more like an issue of mismanagment, its used in industrial radiography so that could explain how it ended up in a junkyard, but they need to track it down because this kinda stuff can be used for nuclear terrorism

 

[shaktiman2010]

Not a big deal. It was an isotope(Cobalt-60), which is commonly found in medical industry.

A lot more worse happens in USA. Two years back, several hundred kilos of "enriched uranium" went missing from atomic research facility in USA. Still noone knows where its gone.

Several such incidents have happened in USA after Iraq war, but they have been kept under wraps from mainstream media.

 

[Fighter488]

Another dealer down with radiation exposure​

Was Carrying Cobalt-60 Pin Given To Him By First Victim

Dwaipayan Ghosh & Risha Chitlangia | TNN



New Delhi: Eight days after six people landed in hospital with severe health complications following exposure to radioactive radiation in Mayapuri junk market, another scrap dealer has been admitted at Max Hospital in Pitampura with similar symptoms.

Ajay Jain, who owns a shop (D-II/62), is the eighth person to have reported sick due to exposure to one more source of Cobalt-60, the 11th in the city. He was reportedly carrying it in his wallet.

In another significant development, Bhaba Atomic Energy Corporation (BARC) and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) teams have drawn up a list of 36 people who have been asked to undergo blood test at the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences at Timarpur in north Delhi. ‘‘We have completed collecting blood samples from 12 people. We are going to study the biomarkers to ascertain the radiation dose received by these people. We might test more people in the next few days,’’ said a senior doctor. The police sources said this includes six policemen from the Mayapuri police station and the area SHO.

In what can be seen as lack of preparedness to tackle emergency situations, the hospital authorities took two days to ascertain the cause of Jain’s illness. It took another day before senior officials from BARC and NDMA checked the patient.

NDMA member B B Bhattacharya said that Jain, a resident of Meera Bagh near Paschim Vihar, was allegedly handed over the source of radiation — a 3.8cm-long and 2mm-thick Cobalt-60 pin — by Babulal and Deepak Jain, both of whom are now undergoing treatment, at the market on April 3. ‘‘Jain got exposed to radiation after he unwittingly kept a Cobalt-60 pin in his back pocket,’’ said DCP (west) Sharad Aggarwal.

Experts say that the radiation source retrieved from
Ajay Jain is as strong in emission as the one found in Mayapuri market. ‘‘The strongest source isolated from the market was emitting a strong radiation of 1000 Roentgen per hour. And the one isolated from Ajay Jain is emitting 800 Roentgen per hour. Since the source with Ajay was at zero distance from his body, he has received maximum exposure,’’ said Dr SK Malhotra, head public awareness division, Department of Atomic Energy.

Talking to Times City, Om Pal, secretary, AERB, said it will be too early to declare the market area ‘radiation-free’. ‘‘There
are several agencies working on the ground in the market. We will have to wait for them to complete certain necessary scientific tests before we can declare the area safe,’’ said Pal. Shockingly, as per rules, the market should have been shut down. Yet, on Friday, Times City found several hundreds working at the scrapyards of Mayapuri. ‘‘All our shops are open,’’ said Gajendra Singh, a scrap dealer in the area.

Delhi Police, meanwhile, said it is procuring sophisticated radiation detection devices to equip its personnel to track radioactive material in the capital in the wake of such substance landing in a scrapyard. The city police will be procuring four radiation meters which can detect radioactive material in real time following directions from the NDMA, a senior police official said. ‘‘We will be buying handheld device weighing 1.5 kg each which can detect alpha, beta, gamma and x-rays,’’ the official said. Police is looking for equipment like Geiger-Muller counter that can detect and measure radiation in environment in real time besides Nal and CSL Scintillation diode. It is also open to the idea of buying the equipment from foreign companies.



WAKING UP LATE: At least 36 people, including 7 policemen, who were at the junk market after the radioactive substance surfaced in the area, have been asked to undergo blood tests


ToI feed dated 17 April 2010
Fighter

 

[satishkumarcsc]

This shows how poor our medical waste disposal system is....it annoys me.

 

[ao333]

This is one of the reasons why the Americans still won't finish what they promised a decade ago. The other being that they don't want to export nuclear tech, at all...