Russian Workers Lose Radioactive Capsule Containing Deadly Substance en Route to Siberia

Authorities in Russia are racing against the clock to track down a radioactive capsule that reportedly went missing while en route to Siberia.

The lost object contains a metal called “cesium-137,” which must be handled carefully to avoid deadly consequences, Knewz.com has learned.

Russian authorities are reportedly racing against the clock to find a lost radioactive capsule to avoid potentially deadly consequences. By: MEGA

Workers with TNG-Group, a Russian company that services oil and gas fields, lost track of the capsule while they were transporting it from the eastern region of Irkutsk to Chayandinskoye field in Yakutia, according to a Wednesday, January 17 report by Newsweek citing the Baza Telegram channel, which is associated with Russia’s security services.

The onshore Chayandinskoye field is operated by Gazprom, a major energy company predominantly owned by the Russian state. The team, which set out from Irkutsk on Friday, January 12, realized the capsule was missing on Tuesday, January 16, according to Newsweek.

As time goes on, concerns are mounting over the potential consequences if the capsule is not recovered promptly.

The object was reportedly lost while it was being transported by workers from a Russian company that services oil fields. By: MEGA

Devices containing cesium-137 “are designed to remain sealed and keep people from being exposed,” the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains, “however, if these canisters are intentionally or accidentally opened, the [cesium-137] inside could be dispersed.”

The chemical can cause burns, radiation sickness and even death, according to the agency.

Ingesting or inhaling cesium-137 “allows the radioactive material to be distributed in the soft tissues, especially muscle tissue, exposing these tissues to the beta particles and gamma radiation and increasing cancer risk,” the CDC says.

Exposure to cesium in its most common radioactive form, cesium-137, can cause burns, radiation sickness and even death, according to the CDC. By: MEGA

Newsweek said it reached out to the TNG-Group and Russia’s Federal Service for the Supervision of Environment, Technology, and Nuclear Management, but did not report receiving a response.

A similar incident in January of 2023 prompted a massive search for a lost capsule in Australia.

A company taking a radioactive gauge from a mine site to a storage facility in Perth found the object broken and its capsule missing, as BBC News reported at the time. This sparked fears over potential hazards to residents and wildlife.

A similar incident in January of 2023 sparked a massive search for a pea-sized radioactive capsule that was lost during transport in Australia. By: MEGA

Western Australia’s chief health officer Andrew Robertson told the outlet that exposure to trace amounts of cesium-137 is like “receiving 10 X-rays in an hour, just to put it in context, and… the amount of natural radiation we would receive in a year, just by walking around.”

The pea-sized object was discovered on a roadside about two weeks after it was thought to have gone missing. Experts emphasized the importance of finding lost radioactive objects quickly, due to substance’s “half life” of 30 years. This means it takes this long for the metal to lose half of its potency.

Following the incident in Australia, a senior lecturer in nuclear engineering at the University of New South Wales, Edward Obbard, told Newsweek that when objects like this remain lost for long periods of time, they may be found by unsuspecting individuals, which could be “quite dangerous.”