India’s nuclear power regulator has turned to Canada for help after a tragic incident in which a gamma-ray generator purchased 40 years ago from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. was mistakenly sold for scrap by the University of Delhi — killing one recycler and leaving at least six others with severe radiation sickness requiring possible bone-marrow transplants.
An Indian government panel is already investigating how one of that country’s leading universities could have trashed a highly radioactive instrument along with old tables and chairs from a chemistry lab.
Following the Feb. 26 sale of the Canadian-made machine to a scrap dealer in Mayapuri — an industrial suburb of Delhi, the Indian capital — the lead housing around its radioactive components was pried opened and 12 of the 16 cobalt-60 rods or “pencils” were removed, some ending up in the shops of metal dealers around the city.
Read the whole article… very interesting.
Found by Obtuser on Cage Match.
From the article:
The international political fallout from Operation Smiling Buddha — the code name for India’s first atomic test — only ended in 2008 when Canada and the world’s other suppliers of nuclear material agreed to begin doing business again with the South Asian nation.
“Smiling Buddha”? Ouch, that just sprained my irony detector.
In the 25 years since the guy retired there have been probably two generations of professors and administrators pass through. Nobody has a clue wtf that thing is or was. What is it? Hellufino. Just clear the space, toss that old crap because we obviously don’t need it anymore.
This sort of thing has just begun, I suspect.
I would think a device like would be covered with warning stickers.
What the hell is that?
And there pissed off with Australia for not selling them uranium.
#2. I agree. I have access to these isotope source. They are labelled and come in heavy, red painted steel covered lead casings, with the international radiation symbol painted on the outside. Without first hand knowledge in this particular tragedy, it would seem that an Indian bureaucrat intervened in a technical matter.
So,
The supplier didnt KNOW the person died 25 years ago?
Who was supposed to WATCH, who was responsible for the product in another country?
How many LABELS in 6 languages were POSTED on this machine? And NO ONE READ THEM..
Wasnt the SCHOOL responsible enough to FOLLOW THRU??
WASNT THE GOV MONITORING the existence of this device??
25 years is a LONG time for a device like this, and NO BODY KNEW where it was..
When you cut through heavy lead to get at something you are either very ignorant or you have a clue that what’s inside is both valuable and radioactive.
The people that had the cobalt removed and sold should be shot. They didn’t care and I don’t think the people that sold the thing cared if they even bothered to find out what they were selling. The thing was going to be gone so it wasn’t their problem as they saw it and disposing of it properly would have cost a fortune.
You do not want something like this melted down and end up in car bodies, kitchen knives, cans, or artificial joints.
# 1 Phydeau – “Smiling Buddha”? Ouch, that just sprained my irony detector.
Yeah, especially in a Hindu country. Always thought it should have been Operation Vishnu the Destroyer!
Hmmmm. One of the Buddha’s students is always depicted as a laughing, fat man and wasn’t the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki jovially called Fat Man? Am I seeing a trend here?
We give such people H1B visas…
A similar event happened in Mexico about 15 years ago. A medical cobalt machine was scrapped at a junkyard in Mexico. Some of the cobalt was made into rebar that was reimported into the United States and eventually set off a radiation detector at Los Alamos. As far as I know, the US made no effort to track down the rest of the rebar or to determine the fate of the rest of the cobalt.
As I recall, nobody died but several Mexican workmen were rendered sterile.
Apparently, no one in the world can afford to keep workers who know what the hell they’re doing any more.
uN pAT..
Very true..
They have learned from the USA..you need 1 person to know what to do and 20-100 idiots to DO WHAT/WHAT/WHEN THEY SAY..
You pay 1 person Good wage and the others almost nothing.
AS well as you would think that SOME idiot was supposed to keep track of things.
we have better protection on Explosives for Mining, then Anyone had for this device..
How many MORE are floating around?
There have been plenty of incidents like this. One of my favorites was some teenagers discovered a discarded gallon jug of liquid mercury that some university had thrown away.
The kid was such a moron he gave some to his friends, and they played with it because it “looked just like that Terminator T1000 guy”.
In the end the kids had to be given chelates, their front yards were scraped by bulldozers, they lost all their clothing and their bedrooms had to be sealed off and cleaned, and their parents had second thoughts about their kids not taking basic chemistry class.