Radioactive capsule capable of causing disease found in Australia after falling from truck

The authorities of Australia found this Wednesday, 1, the tiny radioactive capsule that had been lost in January. “It’s a good result, as I said, it certainly found a needle in a haystack. I think Australians can sleep better tonight,” said Western Australia Minister for Emergency Services Stephen Dawson. After a search for hundreds of miles on the highway, the tiny capsule was found on the side of a deserted road south of the town of Newman, near the mine it came from, state Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm said. The search, which lasted six days, came to an end when a special vehicle detected radiation on the road. Authorities are now working to remove the capsule and transport it to a safe location, Klemm said. The piece, smaller than a human fingernail – just 8mm by 6mm – fell from a truck onto a desert highway in Western Australia last month. The capsule is a silver cylinder that authorities say contains enough Cesium-137 to cause acute radiation sickness. The object disappeared from a truck that left a mine located 1,400 kilometers north of the state capital and was heading towards the Perth region, a distance greater than that between the cities of Paris and Madrid.