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| Situation Update No. 1 Ref.no.: HZ-20100122-24664-DEU
Situation Update No. 1
On 2010-01-22 at 16:12:11 [UTC]
Event: HAZMAT
Location: Germany North Rhine-Westphalia URENCO Enrichment Plant Gronau Situation: A worker has been accidentally exposed to a radioactive substance, uranium hexafluoride, at a uranium enrichment plant in Gronau in northern Germany, officials said Friday. Hospital doctors said there was no immediate evidence his health had been damaged. The man, 45, felt well. An air-filtration machine cleaned the contaminated air and none of it reached the outside world. "There's no radiation at all coming from him. He feels just fine," said Otmar Schober, head of the nuclear medicine clinic at Muenster University Hospital. Blood, saliva and urine samples are being sent to a laboratory to find if he absorbed any of the substance. Uranium hexafluoride forms a corrosive acid when it comes in contact with moisture in air and can be lethal from contact alone. The Urenco company gave no details on how the substance escaped in the container preparation unit at Germany's only enrichment plant on Thursday. Urenco said there had been no threat to the public. A spokeswoman said an investigation into the cause was under way. The plant enriches uranium for use in nuclear-power reactors. Anti-nuclear groups have vainly called for it to be closed. |  | | | |
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