Radiation leak outlines govt failure, loopholes

The Embassy of France in New Delhi has sought details from the Indian government about the serious radiation caused in France due to hazardous material exported from India.

Embassy sources told rediff.com that they are awaiting details about how the radioactive material reached France from India disregarding safety norms. More than 20 people have been affected by it.

According to New Delhi-based environment & health analyst Gopal Krishna, who is associated with numerous organizations working on environment-related issues, French Nuclear Safety Authority was informed about the radiation emitted by elevator buttons manufactured by the Otis company on October 7, 2008 by the Mafelec (Isere) Company of a radiation incident that occurred at its factory in east-central town of Chimilin.

ASN had conducted an inspection at the Mafelec site on October 8.

ASN classified this event at level 2 on the INES scale for radiation events, due to the exposure of more than ten persons in doses exceeding the regulatory limit for public exposure within the Mafelec society.

Importantly, Krishna says, "In France, the 20 workers who suffered the radioactive radiation have been found and are being treated our Environment Ministry, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Labour Ministry must now trace the Indian workers who must have suffered due to radiation while working with the metal scrap (from the scrap yard, re-rolling mills to the lift steel button manufacturing) that was contaminated with radioactive material. The failure of the ministries concerned is too stark to remain unnoticed."

Gopal Krishna is an applicant in the hazardous waste case in the Supreme Court.

The incident has been taken cognisance of but the response of Environment Ministry, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), Health Ministry and Labour Ministry has been highly unsatisfactory.

Krishna alleges, "Anything that even remotely is concerned with radioactivity makes agencies develop cold feet. They appear too cautious to annoy or create any mechanism to regulate it."

Even today, he says, radioactive material-laden ship Blue Lady is being dismantled by migrant workers from Bihar, UP and Jharkhand with manifest criminal callousness of the agencies at Alang in Gujarat.

Scrap metal and its contamination comes under the Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, but this incident and several others in the recent past illustrate that the rules offer no resistance to trans-boundary movement of hazardous and radioactive contaminated scrap materials.

In France, ASN has already assessed the international ramifications of this incident and taken preventive measures. ASN's October 8 inspection found that packages of contaminated material, Cobalt-60, were arriving at the site of Mafelec from 21 August.

The package was found to be radioactive when it arrived on US shores. A second package -- elevator buttons of contaminated Cobalt-60 -- from Mafelec was present in the cargo area on the day of the inspection.

Advocate Krishna claims, "Indian companies named Bunt, Laxmi, SKM Steels, Vipras Castings Limited, Pradeep Metals Limited were found responsible for shipments of products contaminated with cobalt-60 to several countries. These companies are based in Maharashtra."

Asked about the type of radiation that may have spread across India, Krishna said, "Gamma rays are produced following the decay of radioactive materials such as Cobalt-60. Because it decays by gamma radiation, external exposure to large sources of Co-60 can cause skin burns, acute radiation sickness, or death. The magnitude of the health risk depends on the quantity of Cobalt-60 involved and exposure conditions such as length of exposure, distance from the source (for external exposure) and whether the Cobalt-60 was ingested or inhaled. Medical test can determine exposure to Cobalt-60, but it requires special laboratory equipment that are not routinely available in hospitals."

While explaining the route of the radioactive buttons to France, he said, 'Radioactive steel gets produced when radioactive sources containing Cobalt get amalgamated with scrap steel such as the ones sourced from ship-breaking industry and other secondary steel production sources. In India, the radiation must have happened at least at three stages: 1) Drawing scrap steel from sources such as old ships; 2) While working in re-rolling mills where these are melted and 3) While working on manufacturing a finished product. But we do not have any mechanism to detect them either at the outset or later because the workers involved are not even registered and kept on casual basis."

Dr A N Prasad, former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, told rediff.com, "The problem of radioactive hazardous material is age-old. Some western countries are dumping it in India and we have been not strict about it. This time, the material has gone back to the western country."

Radioactive Co-60 is produced commercially through linear acceleration for use in medicine and industry. It is also a by-product of nuclear reactor operations, when metal structures, such as steel rods, are exposed to neutron radiation.

Most experts allege that the Indian government has been showing complete disregard for the issue.

Krishna said, "As usual, typical insensitive governmental knee-jerk reaction. There is no Public Health Code. No other concerned agency from health, labour, environment has been asked to address this grave issue that has attracted international attention."

Advocate Krishna explains, "According to rules, it does not matter if contaminated 'recyclable scrap metal'/hazardous waste comes without prior decontamination in the country of export although it is in manifest contempt of Supreme Court's directions in its order dated October 14, 2003 in writ petition (civil) 657 of 1995."

Radioactive contamination is dealt under Radiation Atomic Energy (Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes) Rules, 1987 that deals with the radioactive waste, not with radioactive-contaminated finished products.

The framers of both the rules were oblivious to a situation where hazardous waste (recyclable metal scrap, according to Environment Ministry) and the products made out of it would be contaminated with radioactive materials.

Krishna, however, has not lost hope in his battle to improve safety standards.

He says, 'Still, I am hopeful because I know the seriousness of radioactive radiation too grave to remain unacknowledged and un-responded. Indian media is also wary of even touching this subject although a unanimous resolution of Kerala assembly for instance has underlined concerns regarding radioactive wastes and radiations."

The case of elevators buttons illustrates how even the new rules remain full of loopholes.