![]() The vehicle spent four days on the road and arrived in Perth on January 16 but it was only unloaded for inspection on January 25 – when it was discovered the capsule was missing. ![]() State authorities raised the alarm on Friday, alerting residents to the presence of a radioactive spill across a southern swathe of the state, including in the northeastern suburbs of Perth, home to about 2 million people.Īccording to authorities, the capsule was placed inside a package on January 10 and collected from Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine site by a contractor on January 12. Rio Tinto said it has checked all roads in and out of the mine in remote WA, where the device was located before a contractor collected it for the journey south to the state capital, Perth.ĭue to the tiny size of the capsule and the huge distances involved, authorities warn the chances of finding it are slim.Īnd there are fears that it may have already been carried further from the search zone, creating a radioactive health risk for anyone who comes across it for potentially the next 300 years.Īn illustration provided by Western Australia's Department of Health shows the size of the capsule compared to a coin. Mining company Rio Tinto, which used the capsule in a density gauge at its Gudai-Darri iron ore mine, apologized on Monday, saying it was supporting state government efforts to find it. The reason authorities are so determined to find it is that it contains Caesium-137, a highly radioactive substance that’s potentially lethal.Īuthorities in Western Australia believe the capsule, which emits both gamma and beta rays, fell off the back of a truck as it was being transported along a 1,400-kilometer (870-mile) section of the Great Northern Highway – a distance longer than the Californian coastline. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack – an 8mm by 6mm silver capsule, no bigger than a coin, believed to be lost somewhere along a stretch of vast desert highway in Australia’s biggest state. ![]()
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