Australian authorities announced on Wednesday February 1 that a potentially dangerous radioactive capsule, which had been missing for several weeks, had been found. She had been wanted since mid-January after being lost while being transported by truck from a mine belonging to the Rio Tinto group. She was found on the side of a deserted road. The Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto apologized on Monday January 30 for the loss.
” This is a good thing. Like I said, it was definitely a needle in a haystack that was found and I think the people of Western Australia will be able to sleep better tonight,” Steve Dawson, Minister for Health, told reporters. Australian state emergency services. Authorities drove hundreds of miles of freeway in search of the tiny capsule.
She was eventually discovered by the side of a deserted road just south of the town of Newman, near the mine from which she had been transported, said state emergency services official Darren Klemm. . After six days of research, one of the mobilized vehicles detected radiation while traveling on the highway.
Authorities are now working to recover the capsule safely before taking it to a safe place, Klemm said. The silver-colored capsule, which measures 8 mm by 6 mm, used during mining operations, according to the authorities, contains a radioactive substance, Cesium-137, likely to cause acute irradiation.
It had been lost during its transport by truck between a mine near the remote town of Newman and the northern suburbs of Perth (south-west), a distance of approximately 1,400 kilometers.
