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Pervasive radioactive risks in India

the death of a single person, through disparate chains of official negligence, serves to show that he was not safe. And neither are we.

The radioactive risk society , Indian Express, by Neha Sinha, 3 May 2010, On April 10, 2007, a uranium pipeline burst in Jaduguda, causing a spill of the fuel that keeps our nuclear energy schemes running. Further, adds Half Life, a report on radioactivity in India by environmental group Toxic Links, on August 16, 2008, another uranium pipe burst, spewing houses near the village of Dungridih in Jaduguda with uranium waste.

The deadly waste circled and flowed into five houses. Impacts on human life are unknown. But while Jaduguda is sadly punished for its proximity to uranium mining and transportation, it is now clear that it is not just places that surround (and feed) our nuclear energy production that are at risk from exposure to radioactive material.

Last month, a group of scrap dealers, in an unorganised scrap market in the national capital, cracked open a machine that looked like it could be valuable……Exposed to lethal doses of the substance, their hair fell out, and their skin darkened to nearly black, and one worker died days later. They may perhaps fit in the terminology of the Radiation Protection Rules of 2008, as an “off-site emergency”……….

Radioactive waste and material is not about uranium mines, sealed nuclear energy production facilities, and national lab armours. It is also about laboratory equipment, which a university the size of Delhi University can easily procure, and cancer treatment units in hospitals…..
the death of a single person, through disparate chains of official negligence, serves to show that he was not safe. And neither are we.

The radioactive risk society

May 3, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, India | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive, reactors, uranium