Fresh clean-up launched at radiation-hit Mayapuri

A team of experts from the Department of Atomic Energy on Sunday carried out decontamination procedures in parts of the Mayapuri scrap market in New Delhi.

They were reportedly joined by experts from international environmental group Greenpeace in the exercise. The experts also held a meeting with scrap dealers late on Saturday evening and apprised them of the measures they planned to carry out in the area.

Greenpeace had on Friday alleged that radiation levels remained high despite an earlier 'all-clear' by the authorities. Radiation poisoning in the privately owned salvage yard last month killed a worker and left seven more in hospital. The environmental group said its experts picked up radiation 5,000 times above normal background levels in Mayapuri and its surrounding areas. It had claimed that there were at least eight hotspots in the Mayapuri scrap market where radiation levels were much higher than normal.

A person who stands continuously about a metre away from a hotspot for five days is likely to receive the maximum allowed dose of radiation, said Jan Vande Putte, a Greenpeace radiation safety expert. "At a distance of 10cm, a person needs to stand only for two hours for maximum dose," he said.

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board officials claimed to have removed all the 11 sources of radiation from Mayapuri last month. But experts say that as the scrap dealers tried to cut Cobalt 60 into pieces, small particles might have got mixed in the soil there.

"The radiation emitted by these particles is very little. After removing the sources, AERB had put up a board saying 'elevated radiation level' at the market, but it was safe for people," claimed B B Bhattacharjee, a member of the National Disaster Management Authority.