Ciudad Juarez Incident: North America's Worst Radiological Disaster

Radiation is especially dangerous: radiation cannot be seen without special equipment. In addition, the situation is aggravated by the fact that radioactive materials are used quite widely, which means they can end up in the hands of inexperienced or insufficiently responsible people. This is how serious accidents with the "peaceful" atom happened. For example, the events of 1984 in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez were also connected with negligence. Then the incident unexpectedly grew into a problem affecting the entire continent.

In 1978, the events began at the Centro Medico de Especialidades, the main hospital in Ciudad Juarez, located in the state of Chihuahua near the U.S. border. The clinic bought a Picker C3000 radiotherapy machine from Texas. Such devices had long been used around the world to treat cancer. The “C” in the name indicated that the equipment used radioactive cobalt.

There were serious problems with the device. It was bought illegally and was not registered anywhere. There was no warranty or service for the equipment. When it turned out that the equipment was broken, it was simply taken to one of the storage rooms. There, the device with radioactive cobalt inside was quietly waiting for its time.

That time came in 1983. The hospital management assigned two handymen, Vicente Sotelo Alardin and Ricardo Hernandez, to clean out the storage room. They were to sort out the contents and send the metal junk to the scrap metal collection point. While cleaning, Vicente and Ricardo discovered the ill-fated Picker. The device was too bulky for the two of them to carry it out in one piece.

The workers took the medical equipment apart. Without having the slightest idea of its structure or operating principle, they unscrewed the head of the emitter and took out a capsule containing cobalt-60, a radioactive element with a half-life of 5.3 years. In radiotherapy devices, it is presented in the form of small metal granules.

Apparently, the capsule was damaged during dismantling. Because of this, cobalt granules spilled out into the trunk of a pickup truck in which workers were transporting scrap metal. They remained in the car for 50 days, irradiating everything around them, until the car was found by radiological safety specialists.

Most of the radioactive material, along with the capsule, ended up in a scrap metal dump. Since the recyclables were unloaded using a magnetic disc, the cobalt stuck to it. Because of this, any metal that came into contact with this part became contaminated. In addition, granules from the capsule were scattered throughout the dump. It was later discovered that about 20 thousand tons of scrap metal were exposed to radioactive contamination.

The worst thing was that the metal contaminated with cobalt did not remain in the landfill for long. As usual, it was sent to factories for remelting. There, the radioactive raw materials were used to make construction reinforcement and office desk frames. As early as January 1984, just a month after the incident, the reinforcement and desks reached buyers in Mexico and the United States.

On January 16, 1984, employees of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico noticed that their radiation detectors seemed to have gone crazy. For a while, they couldn’t figure out what had happened, but then they realized that the radiation source was outside the building. The scientists saw a truck with reinforcement bars under the laboratory windows.

The driver got lost and stopped to get directions. By pure chance, he found himself right under the windows of a laboratory where Geiger counters were being used. It was a stroke of luck, thanks to which it was possible to quickly take urgent measures. The radioactive metal was immediately reported to Mexico's National Nuclear Safety and Safeguards Commission (CNSNS).

This organization had extensive powers, and it was on its orders that the factories stopped manufacturing reinforcement. It turned out that the truck was emitting 1000 ber. For comparison, during an X-ray a person receives only 0.2 ber. The annual norm for a radiologist is 50 ber. And radiation of 400 ber can already cause serious and irreversible harm to human health, leading to death.

It wasn't hard to track the contaminated metal from the plant. Soon, the commission's employees went to a scrap metal dump in Ciudad Juarez and even found the ill-fated pickup. The authorities took measures to isolate the dangerous vehicle. However, they were more than strange. The car was driven to a site near one of the city parks and... fenced off.

The scrap yard was immediately closed, and the remaining metal was hidden in a concrete sarcophagus. The pickup truck eventually ended up there, too, and stood in a public place for several weeks. Surprisingly, the car's owner, Vicente Alardin, was almost unharmed. He got off with only temporary erectile dysfunction.

In Ciudad Juarez, hundreds of people with shovels and sieves were sent out onto the streets to collect dirt from the roads and sift it in search of small radioactive granules of cobalt. They did this without protective suits. The US government provided Mexico with a specially equipped helicopter capable of detecting radiation sources from the air. The Americans identified and disposed of up to 90 percent of the radioactive metal.

Information about the operation in the US and Mexico is still classified. But rumors are circulating that it did not go so smoothly. By the time the radioactive reinforcement was discovered, thousands of tons had already been used in construction throughout Mexico. They say that the largest shopping center in Ciudad Juarez was built using radioactive reinforcement, and to cover up this fact, the developer gave officials a large bribe.

The result of human carelessness was tragic. Tests revealed that 814 buildings had exceeded radiation levels, and they were either torn down or abandoned. More than 4,000 people in Mexico and the United States were exposed to dangerous radiation. Of these, 85 developed serious health problems, some of which were fatal.

Ciudad Juarez temporarily became the city with the highest percentage of children born with congenital anomalies. Who was responsible for this? No one! Vicente Alardin was not charged because he was simply following his boss’s orders. In fact, he did nothing malicious because he could not have known about the cobalt capsule. The hospital management got off with reprimands and fines.

This incident vividly demonstrates how human carelessness and inadequate control over hazardous materials can lead to catastrophic consequences affecting the lives of thousands of people. How do you think such an incident could have been prevented, and who should be primarily responsible for the control of radioactive materials? Share your thoughts in the comments!