A mining corporation on Sunday apologized for losing a highly radioactive capsule over a 1,400-kilometre stretch of Western Australia, as authorities combed parts of the road looking for the tiny but dangerous substance.
The Associated PressDr. Andrew Robertson, Western Australia's chief health officer, speaks to reporters on Friday about the possible dangers of coming into contact with the lost radioactive capsule. It appears to have been lost during transportation from a mine in Western Australia last week.The capsule was part of a device believed to have fallen off a truck while being transported between a desert mine site and the city of Perth on Jan. 10.
Emergency services in Western Australia have called on other Australian states and the federal government for support finding the capsule because they lack equipment. The capsule measures eight millimetres by six millimetres, and people have been warned it could have unknowingly become lodged in their car's tires.
The chief executive of mining giant Rio Tinto Iron Ore, Simon Trott, said the company was taking the incident very seriously and apologized for causing public concern."We recognize this is clearly very concerning and are sorry for the alarm it has caused in the Western Australian community," Trott said. "As well as fully supporting the relevant authorities, we have launched our own investigation to understand how the capsule was lost in transit.
Western Australia's Department of Fire and Emergency Services publicly announced the capsule had gone missing on Friday, two days after it was notified by Rio Tinto.Authorities said they believe vibrations along the transport route caused a bolt from the container in which the capsule was being transported to be displaced, with the capsule then falling through the hole and off a flat-bed truck.
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