The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987. It occurred after a forgotten radiotherapy source was taken from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 were found to have been contaminated.
About Goiânia accident in brief
The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987. It occurred after a forgotten radiotherapy source was taken from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world’s \”worst nuclear disasters\” and the International Atomic Energy Agency called it \”one of the World’s worst radiological incidents\”. The radiation source was a small capsule containing about 93 grams of highly radioactive caesium chloride encased in a shielding canister made of lead and steel. The specific activity of the active solid was about 814 TBq·kg−1 of caesio-137. The dose rate at one meter from the source was 4. 56 grays per hour. The IAEA states that the source contained 50. 9 TBq when it was taken and that about 44 TBq of contamination had been recovered during the cleanup operation. It would have decayed to about 3. 5 TBq by 2016. The incident occurred at the Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia, a private radiotherapy institute in Goiás, Brazil. It moved to its new premises in 1985, leaving behind a caesia-137-based teletherapy unit that had been purchased in 1977. The fate of the abandoned site was disputed in court between IGR and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, then owner of the premises.
The owners of IGR wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission warning them about the danger of keeping a telether therapy unit at an abandoned site. The court posted a security guard to protect the hazardous abandoned equipment. Four months before the theft, Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira illegally entered the partially demolished facility. On September 16, Alves succeeded in puncturing the capsule from its protective rotating head. He eventually had his right forearm amputated, requiring a right ulceration. Pereira, however, continued with his efforts to dismantle the equipment until he was told to return home and rest and rest his rest. The same day, Pereira began to experience diarrhea and dizziness, and his hand soon developed a burn on this hand in the same size and shape as the hand – he soon underwent partial amputation of several fingers. He finally succeeded in the dismantling of the equipment on September 15, 1987, requiring the puncturing of the right forearm, requiring ulcerated ulcerations and a hand amputation. He was eventually freed from his ordeal and went on to live in the U.S. The accident occurred in the Brazilian state of Goiá. It was just 1 km northwest of Praça Cívica, the administrative center of the city, and it was in the state of Goiás.
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