Suspected radioactive leak at New Delhi airport

The shipment was meant for biomedical companies in New Delhi and a few other Indian cities.

An Indian security guard stands near a barricade at New Delhi’s international airport in New Delhi after officials suspected a consignment containing radioactive material had leaked. Sajjad Hussain / Show more

NEW DELHI // A section of the cargo terminal at New Delhi’s international airport was cordoned off Sunday after a suspected radioactive leak, but officials later said the radiation posed no danger to people and called off the emergency.

The leak at Indira Gandhi International Airport was suspected to have occurred from a package containing cancer medicine that had arrived as cargo on an Air France plane, said New Delhi’s fire chief Atul Garg.

Rao Narender, a duty officer at Delhi Fire Service headquarters, said a regular consignment of the nuclear medicine used in cancer treatments arrived at the airport’s cargo terminal and was being processed when some workers raised concerns that it was radioactive material.

Officials declared a radiological emergency and cordoned off the area. Workers at the cargo terminal had to evacuate the building while a disaster management team investigated the nature of the radioactive material. The cargo terminal is located about 2 kilometers from the airport’s passenger area.

A couple of hours later, district magistrate Abhishek Singh said that the amount of radiation emitted from the medicine was “within permissible limits” and that it did not pose a danger to anyone. He said there was no radiation in the surrounding areas.

“A final call has thus been taken and the radiological emergency has been called off,” Mr Singh said.

He said the package was meant for a New Delhi hospital’s cancer unit.

Last year a similar suspicion caused a scare at the busy airport after cargo staff found a shipment with nuclear medicine damaged on Turkish Airlines.

Investigators from India’s nuclear watchdog later found an organic liquid from another consignment had spilled over the nuclear medicine cartons.

In 2010, a scrapyard worker in Delhi died from radiation poisoning and seven others were injured, raising concerns over the handling of radioactive material in India.

Environmental group Toxic Links estimates that India produces five million tonnes of hazardous industrial waste every year.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse