Radiation fear haunts Mayapuri as scrap worker dies
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COMMENTS 
A scrap worker hospitalised after exposure to radiation in the national capital earlier this month died from multiple organ failure on April 26, 2010, becoming the first casualty in India’s 60 years of nuclear history
One of the eight workers exposed to radiation at a scrap market in Mayapuri, in Delhi, died on April 26, 2010, and the government is still struggling to find the source of the industrial waste that ended up in a scrap metal shop before it was discovered around 20 days ago.
Residents, workers and children in the area are in a state of shock; D-2 block market in Mayapuri, which was once bright with the hustle and bustle of everyday activities in the scrap yards, is now enveloped in fear and gloom.
Ten sources of Cobalt-60 were found in the Mayapuri scrap market earlier this month; eight people suspected to have been affected were hospitalised. Only one of them has so far been discharged.
“Rajender Pal, a 35-year-old scrap worker, died of multiple organ failure at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) after undergoing treatment for the last 17 days,” said Professor A B Dey, the doctor coordinating the patients’ treatment.
Dey said that Pal had had the highest exposure to Cobalt-60, with 1.9 grays. A gray is a unit of radiation. Radiation exposure of above 10 grays can cause instant death, while that of between 1 and 2 causes extensive suppression of bone marrow resulting in a sharp decrease in the number of blood platelets. “The other surviving patients have a gray exposure of between 1.5 and 1.6 and doctors are exploring the need for bone marrow transplants,” Dey added.
Cobalt-60 is a radioactive isotope of cobalt, which is a hard, lustrous, grey metal. It is used in cancer therapy machines and other medical equipment. “There is hardly any literature on how to deal with radiation patients; that’s our handicap. Cancer of the thyroid and blood pose a serious danger for these patients,” other doctors involved in treating the patients said.
“We have given up hope for the other patients. It’s a wait-and-watch situation now. After one patient’s death, all the other patients are very depressed. We are counselling them,” they explained.
“This is India’s first radiation death,” K S Parthasarathy, former secretary of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), said. In the past six decades there were two specific instances of severe radiation damage. In one case, almost 30 years ago, a railway gangman was severely injured, leading to several skin graftings at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre hospital, for close on two years. In another instance, in the 1990s, the hand of a public sector unit worker had to be amputated when he mishandled a radioactive source, Parthasarathy said.
AERB had asked the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, to phase out the Cobalt-60 camera, used for non-destructive testing in the industry, after the amputation incident, as it was easy to take the source out of the camera. Since indigenous Cobalt-60 cameras were phased out in the 1990s, experts suspect that the source in Mayapuri may have come from outside the country.
Indeed, scientists and government officials investigating how hazardous radioactive waste made its way into the New Delhi scrap market say they are certain the material was from outside India, but as it was already mangled by workers they couldn’t ascertain the country from where it originated.
Hemraj Gupta, president of the Association of Scrap Traders in Mayapuri, said the area has over 200 shops with over 2,000 workers dismantling all types of industrial waste from India and abroad.
In the wake of the accident, the Centre has promised to install scanners at every port to check the entry of radiation sources into India.
But in Mayapuri there are no barricades or cautious policemen keeping away the crowds. “The fear of radiation has spread like wildfire in the scrap market. We do not even know whether the scrap that we are picking up is radioactive or not. Recently, some officials visited the area and took our blood samples and everyone is eager to know who is infected and who is not. Now, even if a dealer is suffering from fever or diarrhoea, he cites radiation as the cause,” says Dwarka Prasad Gupta, a scrap dealer in the area.
Narendra, another scrap dealer, says: “Now I don’t take scrap from hospitals, as the thought of radiation simply scares me.”
Rajesh, a young businessman from the area, says his family is so scared after the radiation death that they hardly move out of the house now. “Earlier, I used to sit in my shop for six to seven hours, but now I can barely stay for an hour,” he says.
Source: The Indian Express, April 28, 2010
Deccan Herald, April 28, 2010
http://www.ndtv.com, April 2010