The Australian authorities have recovered this Wednesday a small radioactive capsule that fell from a truck on a desert road in the State of Western Australia last week.
It is a solid silver-colored cylinder smaller than a coin, just 8x6 millimeters, but which authorities say contains enough Cesium-137 to cause acute radiation sickness.
After traveling hundreds of kilometers of road, the tiny capsule was discovered after six days by a special vehicle that detected radiation while driving on the highway.
The object disappeared from a truck that left a mine located 1,400 kilometers north of the state capital and was heading to the suburbs of Perth, a distance greater than the distance that separates Madrid from Paris.
It was found on the shoulder of a desert road south of the town of Newman, near the mine from which it had come, State Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm said.
“It is a good result.
Considering the scope of the search area, locating this object has been a monumental challenge.
They have literally found a needle in a haystack," Western Australia's Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson told reporters.
Comparison between the dimensions of the capsule with radioactive material and a coin.
REUTERS
The radioactive capsule was part of a caliper used to measure the density of iron ore from Rio Tinto's Gudai-Darri mine in the remote Kimberley region.
During the search, authorities asked area residents to stay at least 5 meters away if they saw the capsule, as exposure could cause radiation burns.
The capsule will now be placed in a lead container and stored overnight in Newman, before being moved to the state capital tomorrow, Thursday.