Australia’s lost radioactive capsule found on the side of the road

SYDNEY: A tiny but dangerously radioactive capsule which fell off a truck along a remote stretch of outback highway in Australia last month was found on Wednesday, authorities said.

The solid, silver-coloured cylinder is smaller than a human fingernail -- just eight millimetres by six millimetres -- but the authorities say it contains enough Caesium-137 to cause acute radiation sickness.

It was discovered at the side of a desert highway just south of the town of Newman, Western Australia -- near the desert mine it came from, the state´s emergency services commissioner Darren Klemm said.

“It´s a good result,” West Australian emergency services minister Stephen Dawson told reporters. “It´s certainly a needle in a haystack that has been found, and I think West Australians can sleep better tonight.” Authorities had scoured hundreds of kilometres of highway in search of the tiny capsule.

The six-day hunt came to an end after a search vehicle detected radiation while travelling along the highway, with authorities now working to safely remove the capsule before taking it to a secure location, Klemm said. Crews would then place it in a lead-lined container to shield people from its radiation before it is transported.