Radioactive capsule missing in WA

Radioactive capsule missing in WA​

A radioactive capsule the size of a 10-cent coin has been lost somewhere between a Pilbara mine and Perth in Western Australia. It has sparked a nationwide emergency alert as authorities warn the public to steer clear of the tiny item.
The object contains an amount of radiation equivalent to receiving 10 x-rays in one hour and can cause severe skin burns. Anyone who may have driven on the Great Northern Highway freight route since January 10 is asked to check their vehicle tyres for the object.​

Skynews | Archive​

Search on for missing radioactive capsule in Australia​

• A small radioactive capsule has reportedly gone missing in Australia. ​
• It contains the radioactive substance Caesium-137.​
• The public was warned not to touch the capsule if found. ​

An urgent search was underway in Western Australia on Saturday after a tiny radioactive capsule was reported to have gone missing while being transported from a mine. The 8mm by 6mm silver capsule, which is used in mining operations, has been unaccounted for since mid-January, emergency services said. It contains the radioactive substance Caesium-137, according to Western Australia's Department of Health. The capsule is believed to have fallen off a truck while being moved to a storage facility. Health officials have warned it can cause radiation burns or sickness if handled. Fire and emergency services said the capsule was lost between the remote town of Newman and the suburbs of northern Perth, a distance of about 1 400 kilometres (870 miles). Officials have warned the public not to handle the capsule if found and to contact emergency services. Dr Andrew Robertson, chief health officer for Western Australia said: "The concern is someone will pick it up not knowing what they are dealing with." A fire service spokesperson said they are prioritising populated areas during the search, which could take weeks. Authorities were only alerted on Wednesday after the company responsible for the capsule realised it was missing, he added.​

News24 | Archive​

Radioactive Capsule Lost in Australia​

Authorities in Western Australia say they are looking for a missing radioactive capsule. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services said the capsule containing radioactive material was lost during transportation from north of Newman to Perth’s northeastern suburbs. Exposure to the material, used in gauges in mining, could cause radiation burns or radiation sickness, the department said. The small silver capsule measures 6 mm in diameter and is 8 mm tall. Workers are searching the Great Northern Highway for the capsule. Motorists have been urged to check their vehicles’ tires to see if the capsule has become lodged in the treads. People, however, have been warned to stay away from the capsule if they see it because it contains radioactive material.​

Voanews | Archive

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

10 x-rays in an hour isn't all that much.. as far as radioactive fission products go at least. But god help anyone who breaks it open and gets any inside themselves.

 

[Otterly]

Wait, has anyone checked Toadzilla ?

 

[Iron Jaguar]

An anecdotal tale about Abos: there were certain areas where they would not camp for longer than a night, would not eat any food growing in the area, and would not let pregnant women travel through. When uranium became a valuable commodity and geosurveying was carried out, it turned out that the sacred areas were exactly where the most radioactive concentrations of uranium were.

 

[TowinKarz]

Authorities warn the public to steer clear of the tiny item. Anyone who may have driven on the Great Northern Highway freight route since January 10 is asked to check their vehicle tyres for the object.


"Stay away from it, but, go look for it"

Government, lulz.....

2 weeks before you notify the relevant authorities for emergency response?

Probably were hoping they could find it misfiled on the wrong shelf and then pretend nothing ever happened. It's the IRL version of the old sitcom plot: Glue the vase back together before Mom gets home.....

 

[Ser Prize]

1. Or what if an Abo sniffs it and regresses into... whatever comes before proto-human?

Is it possible to be double abbo?

 

[God's drunkest driver]

Anyone up for hunting down that tiny radioactive capsule? Finders, keepers!

I'll race you. It's just what I've needed to complete my collection.

 

[Vesperus]

Damn. I was thinking (wishfully) that something terrible had just happened to Seattle.

Oh well. Hope endures.

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

Lost radioactive sources are super dangerous because they look so innocuous.

I read about a RTG the Russians left behind in Estonia and some poor hunters stumbled across it and they used it to heat their tent that night since to them it was just a small silver canister the size of a can of coke but was hot to the touch.

They all died horribly painful deaths in the next 72 hours. Skin peeling off, vomiting up their stomach linings, blood gushing from their eyes and ears, massive lesions everywhere....yah don't fuck around with radiation kids.

A loose source is a very potent dangers because it looks like nothing out of the ordinary. You might see a small silver looking coin on the side of the road and decided to put it in your pocket and you just gave yourself and anyone who comes close to you an incredibly painful death sentence.

Here I have the vyda on it

 

[BelUwUga]

I believe it's that stuff that killed a bunch of people in Brazil in the 80s. Of course they were all poor peasants who thought the glow was cool and played around with it for days before someone got wise that it was really dangerous. A six year old girl painted the dust on her body and go some on her food. She died a horrible death.

Cobalt-60 actually for Brazil- It was glowing blue which is why she painted with it, "Cobalt Blue" is a very common color name. More sciency explanation of the differences:

Cobalt-60 (60Co) and caesium-137 (137Cs) are the most widely used sources of gamma radiation. Co produces gamma rays with energies of 1.173 and 1.332 MeV and has a half-life of 5.27 years, whereas 137Cs produces gamma rays with an energy of 0.662 MeV and has a longer half-life of 30.1 years.

Very roughly, the Cobalt is twice as radioactive at a cost of 1/6 the half-life. From a design standpoint you'd only go for Cobalt if you need that intensity.

 

[KiwiFuzz]

I'm not sure why the Australians mentioned it. Something the size of a dime that bounced off a truck in a 1,500 km stretch of empty, empty road?

There have been many situations where a wholeass car goes off a reasonably well-travelled stretch of desert road and isn't found for 50 years.

It's not even implied in the article that the thing looks like anything. Maybe someone would pick up a shiny dime they found on the side of the road, but something that looks like (and I am speculating here) a button cell battery?

It's almost like they want people to go looking for the forbidden challenge coin.

 

[Pee Cola]

Why bother searching for it? The authorities should just wait until someone turns up at a hospital with signs of radiation poisoning. Much easier to find the capsule that way than by combing 1,400km of highways with metal detectors and/or geiger counters.

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

Was it not even in a box? Just a little fucking radioactive coin rolling around in the back of a truck?

 

[Puddinghead]

Was it not even in a box? Just a little fucking radioactive coin rolling around in the back of a truck?

It would have fallen out of a nuclear densometer/soil density gauge which should have also been kept inside a purpose built case for transport. They get banged around on site but it would take something pretty exceptional for the nuclear source to fall out. I used to do the job and can't fathom how it could have escaped the transport case.

The responsible contractor was just named as SGS.

 

[Halmaz]

Is this the synopsis of a new Koala Man episode? Sounds dope.

 

[Rommelbutt]

Was it not even in a box? Just a little fucking radioactive coin rolling around in the back of a truck?

I assume it wasn't because the Australian government wrote that people should check their tyres to see if it's stuck in there.

 

[Cherry Eyed Hamster]

CS-137 is not that dangerous. it'll be fine.

It’s one of the most volatile isotopes of an already reactive element, it was one of the more prominent byproducts of the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disasters since it can travel incredibly long distances in the air.

 

[Rommelbutt]

It’s one of the most volatile isotopes of an already reactive element, it was one of the more prominent byproducts of the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disasters since it can travel incredibly long distances in the air.

I really want to know where that fucking capsule is. And why they didn't secure it in a box.

 

[TowinKarz]

I really want to know where that fucking capsule is. And why they didn't secure it in a box.

What you're probably seeing here is just the end result of years of complacency in lax handling that got laxer because every step they skipped didn't result in immediate problems. And that just encouraged them to skip another step, and in good ol' swiss-cheese failure model tradition - eventually they got enough stacking crits to cause a disaster.

The regulations probably SAY the capsule has to be out of the machine and in a large protective box with lots of warnings for transport, but, it takes time to put on your handling gear, take it out of the machine, put it in the box, seal the box, inventory the box, etc. And when we need to use it again tomorrow? Then we have to do it all over again. And that takes time.

Lets just skip putting on those protective gloves, it's just a tiny lil' thing? How much can it hurt you? And nothing happened...

So they thought Hey, It's much easier to just leave it in the machine and put that in a box or something...... why do we need two separate boxes? And nothing happened.

And that eventually graduated to just leave it in the machine and put the machine in the truck bed, does it really need boxed up? We'll put a bungee cord around it so it won't roll around. And nothing happened.

Then, they just skipped the bungee and let it roll around loose in the bed over every bump and sharp turn, so what? It's a sturdy machine that'll dent the truck before it takes any damage, right?

And they got away with it like that, bouncing around in an open-topped truck, probably for years, until that fateful day they just threw the machine in the back of the pickup as usual, drove back to the worksite and .... uh..... where's the capsule?

 

[AnsemSoD1]

Some fucking abo ate it lol, now the cunt looks like a glowing one wandering the desert.

A literal glownigger.

 

[mold]

What you're probably seeing here is just the end result of years of complacency in lax handling that got laxer because every step they skipped didn't result in immediate problems. And that just encouraged them to skip another step, and in good ol' swiss-cheese failure model tradition - eventually they got enough stacking crits to cause a disaster.

The regulations probably SAY the capsule has to be out of the machine and in a large protective box with lots of warnings for transport, but, it takes time to put on your handling gear, take it out of the machine, put it in the box, seal the box, inventory the box, etc. And when we need to use it again tomorrow? Then we have to do it all over again. And that takes time.

Lets just skip putting on those protective gloves, it's just a tiny lil' thing? How much can it hurt you? And nothing happened...

So they thought Hey, It's much easier to just leave it in the machine and put that in a box or something...... why do we need two separate boxes? And nothing happened.

And that eventually graduated to just leave it in the machine and put the machine in the truck bed, does it really need boxed up? We'll put a bungee cord around it so it won't roll around. And nothing happened.

Then, they just skipped the bungee and let it roll around loose in the bed over every bump and sharp turn, so what? It's a sturdy machine that'll dent the truck before it takes any damage, right?

And they got away with it like that, bouncing around in an open-topped truck, probably for years, until that fateful day they just threw the machine in the back of the pickup as usual, drove back to the worksite and .... uh..... where's the capsule?

this is how the world ends

not with a bang

but with an nword