A tiny capsule containing radioactive material that fell off the back of a truck on a 1400km journey along the Great Northern Highway in Western Australia has been found by the side of the road almost a week after it was reported missing
The Western Australian government is celebrating after emergency services found the tiny radioactive capsule in Newman after it went missing nearly a week ago.
The recovery of the capsule ends a large-scale interagency search for the missing object.
The operation, led by the WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services, spanned 1,400 kilometres from the outback to metropolitan Perth and yielded success in just seven days.
The tiny capsule – 8-millimetres high by 6-millimetres round – was located two-metres off the northbound roadside edge of Great Northern Highway at 11am yesterday.
It was discovered by a vehicle search crew that was using specialised radiation equipment.
The capsule has been safely recovered and is now being securely transported in a lead container to Newman for secure storage overnight before being taken to a WA Health facility in Perth today.
Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm AFSM commended the extraordinary efforts of all agencies and personnel involved in the operation.
“We have essentially found the needle in the haystack,” Klemm says.
“When you consider the challenge of finding an object smaller than a 10-cent coin along a 1400-kilometre stretch of Great Northern Highway, it is a tremendous result.
“I want to thank everyone involved in the search – we called on a large number of agencies to assist and this was a great example of working together to achieve an outstanding result.”
Western Australia’s Chief Health Officer and Chair of the Radiological Council Dr Andrew Robertson says the chances of anyone being contaminated by the source were extremely remote.
“As I have mentioned previously, to be at risk of radiation exposure you need to be close to the source for a period of time,” Robertson says.
“If you were one metre away from the source for one hour, that would be the equivalent of receiving the radiation dose of 10 X-rays.
“This is a great result for the community of Western Australia.”
Mining company Rio Tinto expressed its gratitude for the services coordinating the successful search after the capsule was lost in transit from the company’s Gudai-Darri iron ore mine in the Pilbara.
Rio Tinto would also like to thank the specialist search crews from the Australian Defence Force, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, as well as all other support agencies, for their crucial role in the search and recovery efforts.
The device that went missing was an industrial gauge which is commonly used in the mining industry. In this instance it was being used at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine site to measure iron ore feed in the crushing circuit of the fixed plant.
The capsule is small (6mm diameter, 8mm long), round and stainless steel and forms part of a level sensor (gauge) that is used in some fixed plant assets.
The gauge, packed by a specialist radioactive materials handler, was collected by a transport contractor from the Gudai-Darri mine site on January 12.
Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Simon Trott says: “We are incredibly grateful for the hard work of everyone involved in finding the missing capsule.
“While the recovery of the capsule is a great testament to the skill and tenacity of the search team, the fact is it should never have been lost in the first place. I’d like to apologise to the wider community of Western Australia for the concern it has generated.
“We are taking this incident very seriously and are undertaking a full and thorough investigation into how it happened.
“This sort of incident is extremely rare in our industry, which is why we need to investigate it thoroughly and learn what we can to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“As part of our investigation, we will be assessing whether our processes and protocols, including the use of specialist contractors to package and transport radioactive materials, are appropriate.”