Nine Romanian workers exposed to high radiation
Date: 13-Dec-01
Country: ROMANIA
The men have been in hospital since June, but the incident has been kept secret while police investigate, the National Commission for the Control of Nuclear Activities (CNCAN) said.
"They wore no protective clothes. They got a huge dose of radiation from Cobalt 60 which could have killed them at once," CNCAN Director Anton Coroianu told Reuters by telephone.
Cobalt 60 is an artificially produced, radioactive isotope which serves a variety of medical and industrial uses.
The nine were employed to dismantle two furnaces at the mothballed Victoria Calan plant, which has been closed since the 1989 fall of communist rule.
A 100-sq-metre (1,100-sq-foot) area around the furnaces has been closed off to all but authorised personnel, including investigators, who must wear special protective clothing before entering the site, the watchdog body said.