Talk:Goiânia accident

Units

Can someone convert the microcuries into TBqs? We are mxing SI and "standard" units here.

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The article only says the radiation was 817 TBq, without comparing it to anything. This don't make any sense to most people, who have no idea about how much 1 Bq is.

I have added details of the average smoke detector source as this is likely to be the only radioactive source that the average person will buy in their lives (as part of a smoke alarm).Cadmium

Furthermore, the article says that Devair Alves Ferreira received a dosage of "7.0 Gy, not fatal." How could 7 grays not be fatal? According to Radiation poisoning, a dosage of 6-10 sieverts (which are equivalent to grays) has a 100% fatality rate. Am I misunderstanding the scale of radiation poisoning, or was Devair Alves Ferreira the only person to survive such a dosage? -Etoile 20:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

About the superhuman feat of living despite a 7 Gy dose, the human body (and other living things) has a self repair mechanism. If the dose is given quickly to the subject in one batch then the self repair mechanism has no time to work. But if the dose rate is lower, or the dose is given in small installments then the biological system can endure a much larger dose. I will alter the article to explain this.Cadmium

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The article mixes Greys (a unit of absorbed dose) and Sieverts (a unit of equivalent dose). In the context of a gamma or beta emitter, these units mean the same thing, but most people reading the article won't know that. I think this should be corrected or at least noted somewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.211.202.84 (talk) 06:18, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Questions about aftermath

Not that the facts listed here disagree with those at List of nuclear accidents. --Andrew 20:41, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Andrew: I suppose you are referring to the numbers of victims: Well the 244 / 400 is descipancy, I might look into that when I have the time. Concerning the deathtoll, it's in the nature of such accidents that counts disagree: Radiation poisoning can be rather clearly diagnized but what about cancer? Sanders muc 22:33, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

That's what I was referring to; it might be worth putting something in the article to indicate that estimates differ. As you say, it's alarming whatever way you look at it. Do you know what was done to the sites? (The house whose floor got covered in dust, for example) Are they abandoned, with warning signs? Were they cleaned up? Are they in use without cleanup? I sort of fear the last, since they're inhabited by dirt-poor people. For the purposes of studying radiological weapons it'd be good to know too. --Andrew 01:30, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

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After reading this source, I suspect that this article might be better named 'Goiânia Radiation Incident' with a redirect from 'Goiânia accident'. That is, unless it is universally known as the 'Goiânia accident'. -- Solipsist 15:30, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe you are right. Simon A. 16:26, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Name of wife

Is there any better way to refer to the wife of the junkyard owner, other than 'the wife'? Is her name known, or is that confidencial? -- Solipsist 15:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Don't know. Just wrote the article from Web search results. So, if you find her name, add it. ;-) Simon A. 16:26, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not "waste"

The Cs-137 source that was opened and caused the contamination was not radioactive waste. It was a sealed source in an irradiator that was illegally abandoned in the hospital. All sealed sources like this are required to be under control and inventoried and reported if missing. All these controls failed in this case, but the source was not in fact radioactive waste. -- User:24.151.184.155 05:12, 13 September 2005

Thanks for the clarification - I've removed the mention of waste from the article. Be bold: if you see any other mistakes feel free to edit the page directly. -- Solipsist 07:02, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

"Goiânia incident"

This was an incident not an accident. Immaterial to most I guess. --Wetman 07:57, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, see comment 28 Sep 04 above. No one seems to object, so it is probably time to move. -- Solipsist 16:17, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I believe the "accident" terminology is correct. Under the International Atomic Energy Agency's scale of nuclear events (the INES) Goiânia is clearly not an incident but an accident (a major accident in fact). See [1]. Mucky Duck 18:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it is an accident, but not a "Major Accident" -- that is only for the highest level of the scale, for accidents like Chernobl (sp?). Since the exposure was to less than 100 Terabecquerels, the case could be made that it wasn't even a "Serious Accident". Regardless, it is an accident, so I created the "Goiânia incident" page as a redirect to this one. If the discussion goes the other way, it shouldn't be a problem to reverse my work. Mdotley 16:57, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Similar incident

I saw a documentary about an incident in which radioactive rods from a dumped Mexican X-ray machine came loose, which was only discovered when a lost lorry driver ended up triggering a radiation alarm at Los Alamos. Was this the same incident, and if so, should there be mention of the lorry driver? smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 11:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Different incident. This one's in Brazil. --Carnildo 06:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

thanks

cool this helped me on my debate!!!

Data

I'm sorry about my English, so i am not going to change anything in the main text; but i have something interesting about this incident (or accident), maybe someone can change the text:

• When the accident happened, there was moral panic in all Brazil; the people of Goiânia began to be prejudiced about that;
• There was found nothing cominated in 2001 but a guava tree, that was cut down [2]
• Most people who were contaminated didn't know nothing about the accident (some even played with the substance); a lot of kids born after have some health problems (not like Talidomida, but blood, breathing, etc. problems)

Waste disposal incidents

I think that the edit to change a cat. to Waste disposal incidents was in part right and in part wrong. I think it was right becuase the accident involved an object which had become waste by virtue of the fact that it was abandoned so it counts as a Waste disposal incident. But it is also about the recycle process as a group of scrap metal workers tried to return the metal into use through their scarp metal yard. I have added a discussion of radioactivity in scrap metal (which I think is best placed in this article) which includes some other examples of related events. Overall I think that the article should stay in both "cats".Cadmium 12:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Scrap metal contamination

The information on scrap metal contamination and dose vs. time health hazards looks excellent (especially the charts), but does it really belong in this article? This would seem to apply equally to many other accident entries, especially the metals section. 142.161.176.232 06:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. One-third of the article is taken up with diagrams detailing the waste outcomes for radioactive contaminants in a scrap metal furnace, which is irrelevant to this particular incident. Suggest this section is split to its own article, "Accidental furnace contamination with radioactive metals". Cheers Clappingsimon talk 08:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It was to make that same comment that I came to the Talk page. I think the proposed title from simon, there, is too cumbersome, but I agree with the concept. Mdotley 16:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I am the person who added the details of how radioactive materials behave if they are added to scrap metal. I think that a page on the subject of radioactivity in the scarp metal trade would be a good idea. I think that as wikipedia gets bigger and more mature that this sort of thing will fork off into its own page. I have just parking the stuff in the best current place, if any of you want to help out then I would be glad to start work on a new page (I have just made it at Radioactive scrap metal).Cadmium 11:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I am going to be bold and remove from THIS article the information that Cadmium has so graciously provided, and helpfully split off into its own article. Feel free to revert if I have overstepped the consensus. Mdotley 17:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mdotley, I have no problem with what you have done. I think that a series of smaller articles is oftein better than one long one (as long as the fragmentation does not make it unreadable).Cadmium

Comparision with other related events

That part of the article mentions related events, including one in Mexico, but gives neither introduction nor link? MadMaxDog 14:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I think becuase the mexico Co-60 event occured so long ago that no IAEA report can be obtained from their web site on it. I have added three on-line references to the Tammiku (Estonia) event where people broke into a radioactive waste store to steal scrap metal (stupid crime). I think that the Tammiku (Estonia) event is well documented and is a very good example of a sealed source event where the source stayed sealed (no contamination occured), the mexico event is mentioned in many journals and has now become part of the common knowlege of many scientists.Cadmium 11:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

"Popular culture" moved into leaf article

I'd moved the list of movies, songs, etc into the leaf article Goiânia accident in popular culture. This became common practice (see e.g. Gorilla or Tachyon) to keep the main article better focused (and smaller, in this case). Pavel Vozenilek 21:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The "popular culture" article is quite small. If it is going to grow much larger, it might be best to keep it separate, but if it doesn't get any longer, paste it back into this article.

Mfgreen 00:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Mfgreen. It is very small. The Pt version didn't split and it's still good. Khullah 18:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Reorganization

I have been bold and reorganized much information. The data on contaminated scrap metal, that Cadmium duplicated in a more specialized article has been removed from this article. Also, the data on cell reaction to fractionated doses of radiation (rather than one long exposure) has been split off into a stub. All the information is still available, but it is not in the way of those who do not want all the technical details.

I think the Categories need to be examined, now. Some of those probably applied mainly to the info that has been split off, and should be removed from this article. Would anyone care to take that on, and then include the "split off" articles in the appropriate categories? Thanks! Mdotley 18:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I took care of the categories a while back, and now feel that I have done all I can to contribute to this article. I am removing it from my watchlist, but feel free to reach me via my talk page if I can be of assistance. ~ MD Otley (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Error in comparison table?

The comparison table states that a smoke detector contains 37 KBq, and the device when stolen contained 50,900,000 KBq. 50,900,000 KBq == 50.9 GBq, not 50.9 TBq as stated in the article text. I believe that the first three rows of the table require an additional three zeros. Agree? --Jered 204.246.225.2 18:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed and changed: 1TBq = 10^9 KBq. Dylan Thurston 20:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Strange data

Hi I know that this is not the space for this kind of question, but I hope I can clear it before trying any editing. I'm confused about an aspect on the article. Why the Junkyard workers died, if their radiation doses where only 4.5 and 5.3 Gy? Devair Alves Ferreira got 7.0 Gy,and Maria Gabriela Ferreira got 5.7 Gy. None of them died. Thank you larotta 21:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Please read the article Dose fractionation. The basic idea is that one can survive a higher dose if it's spread out over a longer period of time, b/c one's body has a chance to repair the early damage before the later fractions of the dose. Mdotley 01:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

And actually, the wife did die. Mdotley 01:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

the animation

The source's animation seems broken. I see something rotating inside a circle but it looks crappy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.50.43.90 (talk) 07:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

It also needs to be explained better. It shows nothing happening except a thin beam when the inner window matches the outer window. But when they are at opposite positions (blocked with an interior casing) the graphic suggests that the capsule is then emitting massive amounts of radiation in all directions. Either this issue is not explained well or the animation is misleading. I have replaced the graphic with an earlier version. -Rolypolyman (talk) 16:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Hospital

Does anyone know why the hospital was abandoned? Drutt (talk) 15:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Similar accident in an old film. Which film was it ?

I remember an old film (perhaps in black and white) with a similar accident.

Two or three people discover near the water reservoir of a town a metallic object similar to a little box (this one fell from an aircraft). They open this box with many efforts but they found nothing interesting inside (the box contained high radioactive source for an arm). They keep the box and they threw the contents in the water reservoir ! The film ended here and the viewers were afraid because all the inhabitants of the town will be contaminated drinking the water that became highly radioactive...

What was the name (and date of production) of that film ?

--CUSENZA Mario (talk) 00:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)