A truck that was carrying dangerously radioactive capsules down a highway in Australia accidentally lost one on the road. They say it “fell off the truck”.
How, exactly, does highly radioactive material simply fall of the truck? I mean, was it an old farmer’s truck, the kind with homemade wooden rails on the hay filled bed where farm animals and the various hitchhiker were getting rides? Did it fall of the metal milk canister being stored back there?
I will admit, it’s small, only 6mm by 8mm. It’s the size of a key ring. We misplace those all the time……… our key rings that give off the equivalent of 10 x-rays per hour radiation. I’m sure they just left it on the kitchen counter, next to the bottle of cyanide.
The capsule belongs to a mining operation that uses it to determine ore density. They’ve publicly apologized and saying that they’re taking the incident “seriously”. Because they obviously didn’t take the transporting part all that seriously. Authorities in Western Australia have issued a warning for travelers and are searching.