List of Civilian Radiation Accidents - 2010s

2010s

• April 2010 - INES level 4 - A 35-year old man was hospitalized in New Delhi after handling radioactive scrap metal. Investigation led to the discovery of an amount of scrap metal containing Cobalt-60 in the New Delhi industrial district of Mayapuri. The 35-year old man later died from his injuries, while six others remained hospitalized.

• July 2010 - During a routine inspection at the Port of Genoa, on Italy's northwest coast, a cargo container from Saudi Arabia containing nearly 50,000 pounds of scrap copper was detected to be emitting gamma radiation at a rate of around 500 millisieverts per hour. After spending over a year in quarantine on Port grounds, Italian officials dissected the container using robots and discovered a rod of cobalt-60 nine inches long and one-third of an inch in diameter intermingled with the scrap. Officials suspected its provenance to be inappropriately disposed of medical or food-processing equipment. The rod was sent to Germany for further analysis, after which it was likely to be recycled.