Print View Posted on: 26 October 2016
An industrial radiograph test was performed in Sakarya province, Turkey on October 17,2016 after which a serious radiological incident occured.Test was performed in a normal manner but after the test, the radiological protection officer hurried up and skipped the control that the source was secured. The source, Ir-192 with a 15 Ci activity (category 3 source according to INES manual) at the date of the accident, dropped to the worksite as unsealed. The source was found by a 16 years old visitor (E.B) approximately at 03:40 p.m. (local time) next day. E. B. placed the source to his trouser’s back pocket and travelled to home for two and a half hours. At the house, household members and their guests declared that they touched or saw the source until approximately 09:00 a.m. on October 20, 2016.The source was reported as lost to Turkish Atomic Energy Authority Disaster and Emergency Management Center by its owner on October 20, 2016. Source was found and secured on October 20, 2016 by the team of Turkish Automic Energy Authority sent to the radioactive waste facility at Çekmece Nuclear Research and Training Center in Istanbul.Up to now, total of 20 public members were referred to the hospital with suspect of being irradiated. E.B. is the most severely irradiated person with a biological dosimetric whole body dose of 1 Gy. E.B is referred to reference hospital and the other people were discharged from hospital with a plan of follow up as out patients.The event is categorized as INES Level 2-Incident provisionally.The event is under investigation.