UNDT October 2, 2012 - The Moscow News - Moscow bank issues radioactive money to pensioner - A local pensioner has accidentally found out that money she brought home from a Moscow bank was highly radioactive. Yelena Kryzhanovskaya, 61, said she went to a bank on Bulvar Admirala Ushakova on Sept. 22, where she withdrew 50,000 rubles from her account. When she returned home and she hid the 10 5,000 rubles notes under her pillow, where they remained for two days, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported. "I have a domestic radiation meter, I bought it just in case, to check produce," the woman said. "And when I turned it on, I saw it was through the roof. I started walking around the flat with it and found the source of the radiation." The woman called emergency workers, who determined that the radiation levels were 20,000 times higher than the norm, and was compatible to the dose received after catastrophes at nuclear power stations.
October 2, 2012 - ABC 8 - Low-Level nuclear waste incident in Lincoln - Nuclear waste travels through Nebraska almost daily. On Saturday, a bit of scare here in Lincoln. Officials say the incident at 56th and Highway 2 could have been worse. The truck was carrying low-level waste, but thankfully it didn't end up causing any harm. Emergency vehicles swarm a flatbed semi Saturday after it stopped too quickly, causing its load to shift, it happened near 56th and Highway 2. That load contained low-level nuclear waste. "The public should stay away from anything labeled radioactive material," Environmental Health Specialist Ralph Martin said. Ralph Martin is an Environmental Health Specialist who works closely on these types of events. He says in this instance, the low-level waste never left its container, which was a very good thing. "Well, anytime you have radioactive material in a place it's not meant to be, you would have concern. The levels of this material would be unlikely that anybody could be injured," Martin said.
October 1, 2012 - Asian Scientist - 23 Nuclear Power Plants In Tsunami Hot Spots - Researchers have identified 23 atomic power plants that are more prone to suffering the effects of a tsunami. Facebook ShareStumble It Email Convert to PDFAsianScientist (Oct. 1, 2012) – Spanish researchers have identified 23 atomic power plants that are more prone to suffering the effects of a tsunami, after one struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi power station in Japan that led to the meltdown of three reactors in March 2011. In the study published in the journal Natural Hazards, the researchers drew a map of the world’s geographic zones that are more at risk of large tsunamis. As such phenomena are still difficult to predict, the authors used historical, archaeological, geological, and instrumental records as a base for determining tsunami risk. In total, they found that 23 plants are located in dangerous areas, including Fukushima I, with 74 reactors loc in East and Southeast Asia. "We are dealing with the first vision of the global distribution of civil nuclear power plants situated on the coast and exposed to tsunamis," said study co-author José Manuel Rodríguez-Llanes, researcher at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.