How Australia's lost radioactive capsule was found
Packed sandwiches, the radio on, all while rolling through the vast desert of Western Australia sounds like an idyllic road trip. But that was how a search team scoured the Outback this week for Asesium 137 capsule, a highly radioactive device smaller than a coin that had vanished in the Outback. It fell off the back of a truck driven by mining firm Rio Tinto in early January, and anyone in close proximity to the capsule for an hour would have got a dose equivalent to 10 chest x-rays. The cesium capsule was eventually found on Wednesday. Bronte Seil, a health physicist for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization, told Reuters regular radiation emergency training helped avoid dangers linked to collecting the device. It's one thing using your detectors to find the device. The other thing is having the right personnel who know how to safely control, safely collect the item and what to advise.
Once all our teams were there, we gave each other a big celebration. We're very excited. The week-long search up and down an 870-mile stretch of road involved around 100 people in vehicles equipped with radiation detection sensors. Another main challenge, Seil said, was avoiding the traffic. The danger for us mainly was the fact that if it was near a road, the consequences of the road traffic. So that was because there's a lot of B-double trucks, large, heavy, rigid trucks moving. That was more the concern than the source for any individual person.
Another crucial tool, Seil said, while searching for a dime-sized device in the outback, it also helps to have the right music. My teammate was in charge of the playlist. There was only one condition. I just said, just make sure we don't have any electronic sounds while we were there because our instruments sometimes are more an electronic beep kind of thing if they do go into alarm. So we just had, I think, stone temple pilots.
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