A piece of steel scrap metal from a nuclear plant was used to create construction materials in Taiwan. It was contaminated with radioactive Cobalt The reinforcing bars containing this metal were then used to construct up to apartments and commercial buildings as well as 30 schools around Taipei, Changhua, Taoyuan, and Keelung, from to In one of the residents used a Geiger counter in his apartment and discovered the contamination.
He made his discovery public and the investigation started. The Atomic Energy Council AEC of Taiwan allegedly knew of this problem from , while investigating contamination that they thought was caused by a dentist, who operated an x-ray machine in his apartment. They covered up this problem at the time, blaming the radiation on the dentist.
Eventually, the authorities checked a range of buildings and found contamination in residential, office, and public buildings, including schools and kindergartens. People who lived, worked, or studied in these buildings have increased cases of cancer because they were exposed to low radiation doses during an extended period of time. The researchers found a higher rate of cataracts in children who lived in the affected apartment buildings.
Many of these apartments are occupied by new residents and it is unclear if they know of the contamination, but the agencies who currently rent out the units are aware of the problem, but continue renting out the apartments nonetheless. Also, some of the residents refuse to move from the apartments they own, even though they know about the contamination. This is because they cannot sell their apartments at a high enough price, and the government does not provide enough subsidies for them to afford to move.
There a hospital was abandoned and a radiotherapy unit with radioactive material still inside was left on the premises. The radiotherapy laboratory, IGR, and the owner of the abandoned building had to settle their disagreement about the future of the abandoned site and the ownership of the equipment left inside.
Employees of IGR were not allowed to enter the facilities by a court order, so they could not remove the medical equipment left behind, despite their warnings of the dangers of this decision. When the guard stationed at the abandoned building did not come to work, the teletherapy equipment was stolen by scrap metal harvesters, who were not educated well about the dangers of radiation. The thieves took apart the unit that they stole and revealed the capsule that contained Caesium One of them punctured a hole in it and found glowing material inside.
While working on the unit both of the harvesters received a considerable amount of radiation poisoning, and one of them had some parts of his fingers amputated later, while the other one underwent a partial amputation of his arm, but they did not know the cause of their sickness until later. Several days after stealing the unit they sold the metal, including the capsule to a scrap yard, where the capsule was found by the owner.
He took it home and displayed it to several people because of its beautiful blue glow, caused by Cherenkov radiation, described above. He then commissioned a friend to take some of the powdered material out of the capsule and later gifted it to friends and neighbors. The brother of the scrapyard owner used the radioactive material to decorate his house and placed some on the table.
His daughter, who touched the radioactive powder while eating, was exposed to a lethal dose of radiation both through ingestion and by proximity to the source. She was only six years old. After she died she was buried in a coffin lined with lead, and some people from the neighborhood tried to stop the burial, fearing that her remains will contaminate the cemetery. The wife of the owner became sick soon after the exposure and her mother came to take care of her at the hospital.
The mother then returned to her home, spreading contamination in her village. Later, two employees of the scrap yard worked on the parts of the teletherapy unit, trying to extract valuable metals such as lead from it. They exposed themselves to high levels of radiation during that time and became sick.
The wife started to suspect that the scrap metal might be to blame for numerous sicknesses among her relatives. She recovered the radioactive scrap materials from another junkyard, where they were sold to by then, and took them to a hospital for examination.
Initially, the symptoms that she and other people were experiencing were thought to be caused by a tropical illness, but the package she brought was examined carefully and the doctors understood that radiation was to blame. The physicist, who studied the package at the request of the hospital staff, concluded that it was radioactive. The hospital notified the government and cleanup started shortly after.
It took more than two weeks for the cleanup to start from the time the unit was stolen; by that time contamination spread through the area. The wife of the scrapyard owner is credited with saving people and preventing further spread of the radioactive contamination because she brought the radioactive material for examination.
This accident resulted in the deaths of the niece and the wife of the scrapyard owner, as well as of the two of his employees who were working on extracting lead from the unit. The owner received more radiation than the other four people but did not die from the exposure, likely because his exposure was spread out over a longer period of time. Many more people were treated because of their radiation exposure, and cleanup operations to decontaminate the area that the government undertook included demolition of several houses among other efforts.
A sealed vial with radioactive cesium, originally used as part of a measuring device, was lost in a quarry near Kramatorsk, Ukraine, at the end of the s. It emitted roentgens per hour.
After some efforts to locate it, the workers gave up. The vial was accidentally buried in the materials used to construct panels for apartment buildings.
In an apartment building was built using the panel that contained the vial inside. Three of the residents in one of the apartments in that building passed away, and later, when the new family occupied this apartment, a child in that family also died.
Two adults and four children died from radiation exposure as a result of this accident. In some cases, deaths were caused by the negligence of technicians or medical staff that serviced or operated the radiotherapy equipment. This was the case in in Zaragoza, Spain. The technician servicing a radiotherapy unit, used in the hospital to treat cancer patients, set the power more than five times higher than the norm.
As a result, eleven out of the twenty-five cancer patients died from overexposure to radiation. In in Samut Prakan province in Thailand scrap metal collectors found and opened a container that held cobalt that was emitting This was originally part of a radiotherapy unit in a Bangkok hospital.
After upgrading to a new machine, the hospital sold the old one to the electric company that sold them the replacement. They did not complete the necessary transfer documentation, and the unit was not registered with the agency that monitors the location of all radioactive objects in Thailand. The electric company stored the unit together with two other unlicensed units at a property with limited security.
It is unclear how the unit was stolen, but the scrap metal collectors that had it originally claimed that they bought it. They cut it open with the help of scrapyard workers and soon became ill because they were exposed to high levels of ionizing radiation.
They also contaminated the surrounding area and exposed people in the vicinity of radiation. At the hospital, several days after the first patients were admitted the doctors suspected radiation poisoning. This was 17 days after the first exposure. The hospital contacted the national agency responsible for radiation monitoring. The cleanup team located the radiation source and retrieved the two remaining unlicensed units from the insecure property.
As a result of this accident, two scrapyard workers and the husband of the scrapyard owner died. Both times the units containing radioactive material were unopened and the workers notified the authorities, avoiding accidents.
In one of the cases, the worker recognized the logo that labeled hazardous radioactive material — this logo was created as a response to the Samut Prakan accident.
Gabon, a country on the West coast of Africa, next to Cameroon and Congo, is famous for housing a natural nuclear fission reactor in an area with a plentiful accumulation of uranium. This place is called Oklo. The radioactive decay of uranium happened there naturally because this uranium mine had all the pre-conditions for the decay to happen. Uranium was undergoing alpha decay about 2 billion years ago, but the reactions stopped eventually. Oklo has more than one location, where this natural nuclear reaction happened.
Currently, it is the only area on Earth known to have a natural nuclear reactor. Research on Mars suggests that natural nuclear reactors may be possible there as well. When radioactivity was first discovered, it took several decades before its harmful nature was noticed. As with much of the new technology, for example, electricity and magnetism, radiation was used by quack doctors.
They claimed that radioactive substances had miraculous properties and could cure a range of maladies. One of the most notorious substances was Radithor. It was made by adding about one microcurie or becquerels of radium and thorium to distilled water. Journalists followed and publicized the story of his declining health and eventual death.
He took Radithor from to Initially, he liked the effects of Radithor, given to him by his physiotherapist, so much, that he recommended it to friends. He started experiencing the effects of radiation poisoning, such as weight loss, pains, and bone decay, after several years of taking the substance.
After his death, the governments started regulating items for consumption more strictly. Other substances containing radioactive materials included toothpaste laced with thorium, such as Doramad Radioactive Toothpaste. Thorium was advertised to have anti-bacterial properties. Special jars covered inside with radioactive elements such as radium were also popular for making radioactive water. Different tablets, powders, and liquids that contained radium or uranium were also popular between the s and s.
There were even bath salts and compress pads with radium. This article was written by Kateryna Yuri. Do you have difficulty translating a measurement unit into another language? Help is available! Post your question in TCTerms and you will get an answer from experienced technical translators in minutes.
Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles ionizing radiation. A decay, or loss of energy, results when an atom with one type of nucleus, called the parent radionuclide, transforms to an atom with a nucleus in a different state, or to a different nucleus containing different numbers of protons and neutrons. Either of these products are named the daughter nuclide.
In some decays, the parent and daughter are different chemical elements, and thus the decay process results in nuclear transmutation creation of an atom of a new element.
The SI-derived unit of radioactivity is the becquerel Bq. One Bq is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays or disintegrates per second. Some radiation detectors are calibrated in "disintegrations per second" or "decays per second. Another unit of radioactivity is the curie , Ci. It is equal, by definition, to the activity of any radionuclide decaying with a disintegration rate of 3.
The use of Ci is currently discouraged by the SI. Low activities are also measured in disintegrations or decays per minute dpm. This online unit converter allows quick and accurate conversion between many units of measure, from one system to another.
The Unit Conversion page provides a solution for engineers, translators, and for anyone whose activities require working with quantities measured in different units. Learn Technical English with Our Videos! You can use this online converter to convert between several hundred units including metric, British and American in 76 categories, or several thousand pairs including acceleration, area, electrical, energy, force, length, light, mass, mass flow, density, specific volume, power, pressure, stress, temperature, time, torque, velocity, viscosity, volume and capacity, volume flow, and more.
Note: Integers numbers without a decimal period or exponent notation are considered accurate up to 15 digits and the maximum number of digits after the decimal point is In this calculator, E notation is used to represent numbers that are too small or too large. E-notation is commonly used in calculators and by scientists, mathematicians and engineers. We work hard to ensure that the results presented by TranslatorsCafe. However, we do not guarantee that our converters and calculators are free of errors.
Terms and Conditions. If you have noticed an error in the text or calculations, or you need another converter, which you did not find here, please let us know! Mobile View. Alexa Rank. Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy. We use cookies to deliver our users content and ads they want and to analyze our traffic. These cookies are necessary for the TranslatorsCafe.
You can set your browser to block these cookies. However, some parts of the website will not work in this case. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive all cookies from our website.
More details. Unit Converter Convert units of measurement easily! This site will not work properly because your browser does not support JavaScript! Electrical Conductance and Conductivity Did you know that a common dielectric material such as glass can conduct electricity well in certain conditions?
More about Radioactive Decay. Radiation signs. Personal protective equipment. Naval museum complex Balaklava, Crimea, Russia.
L Personal Dosimeter. Radium ore Revigators can still be purchased on eBay. Absorbed Dose Converter. Compact Calculator Full Calculator Unit definitions.
Online Unit Converters Radiation and Radiology. Radiation and Radiology Ionizing radiation is radiation composed of particles that carry enough energy to liberate electrons from atoms or molecules without raising the temperature of the material.
Ionizing radiation is generated through nuclear reactions, by very high temperature e. Radioactive Decay Converter Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles ionizing radiation. Using the Radioactivity. Radioactive Decay Converter Converter This online unit converter allows quick and accurate conversion between many units of measure, from one system to another.
Random converter. Overview Radiation signs Radioactive decay is the process of discharging radioactive particles. Types of Radioactive Decay Alpha Decay Alpha particles, emitted during alpha decay, are made of two neutrons and two protons.
Beta Decay Beta particles, created during beta decay, are positrons or electrons. Gamma Decay Gamma rays created during gamma decay have a very high level of penetration, much higher than the penetration capacity of alpha and beta particles. Half-Life Each radioactive particle has a half-life, defined as a duration of time in which the total amount of the radioactive substance decreases by half.
Chernobyl Disaster The accident on the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine is notorious for the release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere, and the contamination of the surrounding area. The SI system uses the unit of becquerel Bq as its unit of radioactivity. One curie is 37 billion Bq.
How much radiation is a Curie? Units of Radioactivity and Dose. How many mSv is a gray? The whole-body exposure threshold for acute hematopoietic syndrome or "radiation sickness" is mGy. What is the SI unit of radiation? The radiation dose absorbed by a person that is, the amount of energy deposited in human tissue by radiation is measured using the conventional unit rad or the SI unit gray Gy. The biological risk of exposure to radiation is measured using the conventional unit rem or the SI unit sievert Sv.
What are the units of radiation? The units of measure for radioactivity are the curie Ci and becquerel Bq. Exposure describes the amount of radiation traveling through the air. Many radiation monitors measure exposure. How many BQ are in a MBq? How many mCi are in a CI? What does Roentgen measure? How many REM are in a gray? How many becquerels are dangerous? A cumulative 1, mSv 1 sievert would probably cause a fatal cancer many years later in five out of every persons exposed to it.
0コメント