UN helps authorities in China search for radioactivity after quake in Sichuan

Training and equipment supplied by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has helped emergency workers search for sources of radioactivity during rescue work following the massive earthquake that hit China’s Sichuan province last month, according to a statement of the United Nations.

In the two weeks immediately following the earthquake, a team of radioactive source search and recovery experts fanned out across all disaster-stricken areas.

China’s main centres for designing, making and storing nuclear arms are located in the shattered earthquake zone.

Close to the epicentre of the quake is Mianyang, a science city whose outskirts house the primary laboratory for the design of Chinese nuclear arms. Known as the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, it has centres throughout Sichuan.

The teams which were educated by the UN used radiation detection equipment to pinpoint the location of 50 sources and safely recover all of them, according to China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration. Most of the sources were used in industry.

Under an IAEA Technical Cooperation Project launched in early 2007, staff from Chinese national authorities were trained in how to search for radioactive sources, and to then control and dispose of them safely.

A series of week-long national training workshops on recovery was attended by some 100 Chinese search team members from each of the country’s 31 provinces.

Nabil Lutfi, the IAEA Programme Management Officer responsible for organizing the workshops explained in a statement of the UN: “At the time of the training workshops, we had no clue that the training and equipment would be used in such a disaster.”

In addition to the training that Chinese authorities received, the IAEA made an in-kind contribution of radiation detection and search equipment.

The main complex for making nuclear warhead fuel in the country, codenamed Plant 821, is in part of the earthquake zone, some 25 kilometres north-west of Guangyuan in Sichuan.

The 7.9-magnitude earthquake of 12 May devastated China’s mountainous Sichuan province, killing an estimated 69,000 people. Over 370.000 people were injured and over 17,500 are listed as missing. The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless.