Tuesday, November 21, 2017

"That ‘harmless’ radioactive cloud over Europe probably did come from Russia after all"



A city near the Ural Mountains in Russia that is increasingly looking like the origin of the radioactive cloud released in September. (David Filipov/The Washington Post.)

"BERLIN — Remember that harmless radioactive cloud that mysteriously drifted across Europe back in September? Turns out it may indeed have come from Russia after all where it had radioactivity about 1,000 times higher than normal levels. Experts emphasized on Tuesday that the unusually high levels may still have been harmless.

"What remains a mystery, however, is what produced this cloud, with the most likely culprit, a serial offender of a nuclear reprocessing plant, still denying any connection.

"It was Austria that first detected unusually high levels of radiation on Oct. 3, with Germany confirming them the next day. Over the next two weeks the levels went up and down and finally faded away over a vast swath of the continent.

"France’s Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety calmed fears earlier this month, saying that the cloud of radioactive isotopes — Ruthenium-106 — had posed no health hazards. But the French researchers remained baffled by the cloud’s origins and over the next few weeks, they calculated that it most likely came from deep inside Russia. Germany's governmental Agency for Radiation Protection came to the same conclusion.

"At the time, Russian authorities denied the existence of a leak and the state-owned Rosatom corporation said there had been no leaks in any of its plants and no unusual levels of radioactivity in the area."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/21/that-harmless-radioactive-cloud-over-europe-did-come-from-russia-after-all/?utm_term=.25085257cadc


Damn dirty dealers!

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