Radioactive cylinder kills three Egyptians (latest info)

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Radioactive cylinder kills three Egyptians
  
CAIRO, June 27 (Reuters) - An Egyptian farmer and two of his children 
died from radiation poisoning after the family unwittingly took a 
radioactive cylinder home, hoping the object was valuable, officials 
said on Tuesday. 

Fadhl Hassan Fadhl, his wife and five children were admitted to a 
local hospital earlier this month, suffering from skin eruptions, 
Information Minister Safwat al-Sherif told reporters. 

He said the Health Ministry took blood samples from 160 villagers and 
neighbouring houses were evacuated after a special army unit 
pinpointed the six-cm-long (2.4 inches) cylinder at the farmer's 
house as the source of the radiation. 

Hafez el-Fouli, emergency committee head at Cairo's Nuclear Research 
Center, said it was unclear how the family, from Mit Halfa about 40 
km (25 miles) north of Cairo, obtained the cylinder, which he 
described as a sealed radioactive source. 

``We took precautions to ensure that no one had tried to break the 
cylinder open,'' he told Reuters, adding that the object was some 
form of technical or medical equipment. 

He said it was unlikely the cylinder had been in the family's 
possession for a year, as two of Fadhl's children said, since they 
would have been affected earlier. 

Sherif said the family had filed the cylinder's surface to see 
whether it was made of a precious metal. 

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