Govt must come clean about Prachinburi radiation contamination, says health expert
An environmental health expert has called on the government to come clean about radiation contamination at a recycling plant in Prachinburi.
Dr Sonthi Kotchawat on Tuesday said he feared that residents living within five kilometres of the factory could be affected by a radiation leak which he believes has already happened.
On Monday, the Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP) joined senior officials of local and government agencies at a press conference designed to allay public fears of any leak. They said the Caesium-137 canister that triggered the scare had melted in the furnace of a recycling metal plant without causing contamination of the surrounding environment.
The canister is believed to have been stolen from National Power Plant 5 in Prachinburi’s Sri Maha Phot district last month. Its disappearance was discovered on March 10.
Police are investigating how the canister ended up at the recycling factory but no arrests have been made as yet.
On Monday, the OAP told the public not to panic about radioactive leaks, saying the situation was under control. However, the agency and other officials at the press conference declined to name the factory where the Caesium-137 canister was melted.
The OAP stated only that its officials checked five recycling plants in Kabin Buri and neighbouring Sri Maha Phot districts and found radiation-contaminated red dust at one of them. The red dust was residue from the furnace at the plant.
The OAP said it has seized 24 tonnes of red dust from the plant for safe disposal.
Dr Sonthi said a manager of the plant where the caesium canister was melted told him it was located in Kabin Buri.
He said the filtering system would trap only 90% of the contaminated red fine dust while the 10% other would escape up the furnace chimney into the air, where wind would scatter the radioactive dust over a 5km radius.
“Some of the dust might have fallen and contaminated the soil and water table. The dust may have been eaten by fish, which locals might consume,” he said.
Vegetables or fruits grown on the contaminated soil may also be eaten by people, he added.
Sonthi said the smelting process left large pieces of radioactive metal, which had been stored in piles of scrap around the recycling plant.
“Officials later dug them out but it was too late as the underground water had already been contaminated,” he said.
He said the contaminated water would gradually enter the food chain and eventually affect the public.
The expert warned that people who breathe in air contaminated with caesium-137 absorb the particles in their bodies. Radiation from the particles can then affect their chromosomes, causing leukaemia in five to 10 years.
“So, government agencies must tell the truth to the people. They should themselves go into an emergency panic in searching for traces of contamination,” Sonthi said.
He said officials must also check vegetables grown around the recycling plant for the next two years. They must also screen the health of people living within 5 kilometres of the plant for at least five years.
