Goiânia accident

Goiânia accident, a radioactive disaster resulting from the discovery and subsequent mishandling of a radioactive canister in Goiânia, Brazil, in September 1987 that caused the deaths of four people and the contamination of about 250 others.

On September 13, 1987, scavengers combing through an abandoned clinic in Goiânia, the capital city of Goiás state, found a radiation therapy source that had been left behind. The lead and steel canister looked innocent enough, but it held a small capsule with an iridium window, full of highly radioactive cesium-137 (cesium chloride), a well-known biohazard associated with nuclear facilities. Two men found the canister and took it home in a wheelbarrow. It was the start of a process that has been described as one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents.

The two men would survive, though both suffered nausea and then developed radiation burns; one eventually had an arm amputated. Before the danger became apparent they broke open the iridium window and found the radiation source, which emitted a strong blue light. After five days, the finders sold the partially dismantled unit to a local scrapyard, where the glowing source became an object of curiosity that attracted dozens of spectators.

A brother of the scrapyard owner took some cesium home, where his six-year-old daughter played with the powder. She would die a month later and be buried in a lead coffin encased in concrete. Her aunt would also be a victim. Gabriela Maria Ferreira, the wife of the scrapyard owner, was the first to appreciate that something was wrong and took the capsule to a hospital, where it was identified as dangerous. Her action undoubtedly saved lives, though not her own. The other two immediate fatalities were young men employed at the scrapyard. In all, about 250 people were irradiated, some seriously, and the authorities were forced to mount a major clean-up of contaminated locations. Another 100,000 people were affected by the accident: it has been noted, for example, that the incidence of breast cancer in the area is twice as high as other regions of Brazil.

Three doctors from the abandoned clinic were charged with criminal negligence for leaving such a dangerous piece of equipment behind when the facility was closed down. Following the event and an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the federal Brazil Nuclear Energy Commission developed new protocols for accounting for and disposing of radioactive materials.