Radioactive particles contaminate workers

Twenty-one workers at a nuclear reprocessing plant were contaminated with radioactive particles, it was revealed last night. The alarm was raised after radiation was detected on the shoes of a worker at the Dounreay plant in Caithness, northern Scotland, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said.

Two members of staff in the D2001 plant were found to have contaminated particles on their hands, while one of the pair also had particles on the face. Radioactive dust was found on the shoes of a further 18 workers.

A UKAEA spokesman said: "The operation was stopped and the building was sealed off. There was no radioactive release to the environment and there is no evidence that any of the workers ingested any radiation."

On the two staff found to have contamination on their skin, the spokesman added: "They were taken to our occupational health unit where efforts were made to clean the particles from their skin. Most of the contamination was cleaned from their skin and they were sent home wearing rubber gloves. It is difficult to quantify at the moment but we believe the risk to them to be low."

The two employees are due to have tests today to re-assess their condition. The cause of the scare was not known but an investigation was under way, the spokesman added.

The Health and Safety Nuclear Safety Inspectorate was informed and was expected to launch a separate probe into what went wrong.

At the time of the incident, 70 workers at the D2001 plant were carrying out decommissioning work using robotics arms to lift radioactive materials, which were shielded from them by protective screens.

In January this year, Dounreay met all the short-term recommendations outlined in a safety review. The review was triggered after a number of significant breaches at the plant which culminated in a contractor's digger cutting through the main power supply in 1998.