Nuclear Waste Leaves Workers Near Death in India

Earlier this week, as world leaders at the Nuclear Security Summit discussed President Obama’s plan for securing all nuclear materials around the world within four years, a real nuclear drama was unfolding half way across the world at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in New Delhi.

At least seven people are battling for their lives in India after being exposed to the deadly radioactive element Cobalt-60. In critical condition and near death is Deepak Jain, an Indian scrap metal dealer, in whose shop “eight bags” of radioactive wires and metal scraps were found. In late March, after cutting into a “mysterious shining object” that began to ooze white liquid, Jain was exposed to potentially lethal doses of Cobalt-60. His skin, severely burned, turned black as did his finger and toenails. By the time he reached the hospital, Jain had lost all his body hair according to the Hindustan Times. Five of the six other individuals exposed to the Cobalt-60, all workers in Jain’s shop, are in critical condition.

Indian officials with the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) cordoned off the area in West New Delhi, which is home to 14 million people. Calling it the “worst case of radiation poisoning in India,” officials armed with Geiger counters descended upon the junk shop and packed up radioactive materials.

To date, no one has been able to determine where the Cobalt-60 originally came from. “The material has been shielded in lead flasks and is being sent for examination. It was broken into many pieces and it was difficult to trace all of them. It constituted of Cobalt-60,” S.K. Malhotra, spokesman for the AERB, has been widely quoted as saying.

A spokesman for the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, India’s largest nuclear facility, says that anyone who visited Jain’s junk shop in the past 20 days should immediately go to the hospital to be tested for radiation poisoning.

Cobalt-60 is atomic waste, a radioactive by-product of nuclear reactors. It was co-discovered by Glenn T. Seaborg, who was also the co-discoverer of plutonium, which, along with uranium, is used to make nuclear bombs.

With only 60-70 doctors reportedly in all of India equipped to deal with the kind of radioactive disaster unfolding in West New Delhi, atomic energy officials in India are urging caution and calm despite a growing sense of panic among some locals. On April 14, nearly a week after the first source was discovered, a second Cobalt-60 source was found and isolated in a junk shop a few blocks from Deepak Jain’s. “The area is secure and there was no need to cordon off the area,” Delhi Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told the Times of India.

When asked why the second deadly source was not located the first time officials went in with Geiger counters, Bhagat said, “It is impossible to detect radioactive material with naked eyes. Only scientists with special equipment can locate it. It will take days to clear the market, as it is like finding a needle in a hay stack.” In other words, Bhagat has no idea.

Nuclear experts in India have been quick to say that Cobalt-60 is, in terms of use, benign — commonly used to treat cancer patients and found in hospital equipment. It is supposed to be disposed of by experts, but instead it somehow wound up in two junk shops.

But of course Cobalt-60 has other uses, as students of history and anyone familiar with General Douglas MacArthur’s war plan for North Korea may recall. When the U.S. entered into war with North Korea on June 25, 1950, MacArthur wanted to create what military historians now call “the Cobalt-60 line,” a swath of radioactive material that would prevent anyone from the North from invading the South — unless they were wearing lead suits. “My plan was a cinch,” MacArthur told interviewers Bob Considine and Jim Lucas in 1954 (as recorded in the Charles Willoughby Papers).

MacArthur’s “plan” involved sending low-flying airplanes across the 38^th Parallel. They would drop vast amounts of Cobalt-60 from the air onto the ground so as to “spread behind us — from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea — a belt of radioactive Cobalt. It has an active life of between 60 and 120 years,” MacArthur explained. “For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North.” The plan was vetoed by the president. Later, the general was fired for insubordination on April 11, 1951. The point of the story is that Cobalt-60 can be used for a lot more than just treating cancer patients.

Officials in India are calling the nuclear materials scare a “wake-up call.” And they are also raising the question that perhaps the radioactive material came from somewhere outside of India — say China perhaps. The point is that it will take a lot more than four years and wishful thinking to secure all nuclear materials around the world.