A “highly radioactive” capsule that was lost somewhere along a 1,400-kilometer highway through the Western Australian desert has been found, authorities said Wednesday. The dangerous capsule fell off a truck on a remote Australian highway.
The capsule, smaller than a human fingernail, was recovered by the side of a road near the town of Newman, Western Australia, state emergency services said. It will be transported to a secure facility in Perth.
The capsule disappeared from a truck traveling the Great Northern Highway from a remote mine from Rio Tinto to the southwestern city of Perth sometime in mid-January, AFP reported.
The disappearance went unnoticed until later in the month.
For the past week, vehicles equipped with radiation detection equipment have scoured a swath of Australia greater than the distance between Madrid and Paris, or New York and Chicago.
The eight millimeters by six millimeters contain enough caesium-137 to cause acute radiation sickness.
“It’s a good result,” Secretary of State Stephen Dawson told reporters. “It’s certainly a needle in a haystack that has been found, and I think Western Australians can sleep better tonight.”
The capsule is part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore.
It was part of a package collected on January 12 from the Gudai-Darri iron ore mine in Rio Tinto and delivered to the Perth suburb of Malaga on January 16.
But the package was not opened until January 25 when the meter was found “broken apart” and the radioactive capsule was missing. The same day, the state police were notified.
It was eventually found a few hours’ drive from the mine.
The Australian Defense Force is now verifying the small radioactive device by its serial number, the Guardian reported.
WA’s chief health officer, Andrew Robertson, said an investigation had been launched to determine how the device was lost. If negligence is proven, charges may be filed.
“As chairman of the radiological council, I have a responsibility to actually investigate and, if necessary, prosecute violations of the law,” he said.
He added: “We have a number of authorized officers who are doing that. Our Department of Radiation Health, within the Department of Health, is conducting that investigation and they will be looking at all aspects of this event.”
He added that he was not aware of any injuries or people exposed to radiation.
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