Emergency search begins after small object containing radioactive material goes missing in Australia

West­ern Aus­tralia launched an emer­gency search on Sat­ur­day after a small cap­sule of radioac­tive mate­r­i­al from a mine went missing.

Emer­gency ser­vices said an 8x6mm sil­ver cap­sule used in min­ing oper­a­tions had been miss­ing since mid-January.

Accord­ing to the West­ern Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Health, it con­tains the radioac­tive mate­r­i­al cesium 137.

The cap­sule is believed to have fall­en from a truck while being trans­port­ed to a warehouse.

Health offi­cials have warned that han­dling it could cause burns and radi­a­tion sickness.

Fire and ambu­lance offi­cials said the cap­sule was lost about 1,400 kilo­me­ters between remote New­man and the north­ern sub­urbs of Perth.

Author­i­ties warn that if you find the cap­sules, do not han­dle them and call emer­gency services.

West­ern Aus­trali­a’s chief health offi­cer, Dr Andrew Robert­son, said: “The con­cern is that some­one gets it with­out know­ing it.”

A spokesman for the fire depart­ment said it is pri­or­i­tiz­ing pop­u­lat­ed areas dur­ing the search, which could last for weeks.

He added that the cap­sule man­age­ment com­pa­ny only noticed the loss on Wednes­day and alert­ed author­i­ties only after that.