Radioactivity in Switzerland

[BobCherry@aol.com]

Swiss Mystified by Surge of Radioactivity


Reuters
12-JUN-98
By Elif Kaban 
GENEVA, June 12 (Reuters) - Swiss scientists said on Friday they and
international colleagues were urgently trying to find out what caused a sudden
sharp rise in levels of radioactivity in Switzerland and neighbouring France
at the beginning of June. 

The unexplained surge on June 1 and 2 was not thought to pose a health risk,
but it was the highest level in the 12 years since 1986's Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, said Heinz Surbeck, deputy head of the Swiss radioactivity
surveillance office. 

The contamination, borne on southern winds, might have been caused by fallout
from the Chernobyl disaster reintroduced into the environment, or a possible
accident, he said. 

As of Friday, Surbeck said radioactivity levels were back to normal from
levels over 1,000 times above normal in early June. 

But he said recent French media reports about the radiation surge had caused a
health scare in Switzerland. 

``We've been getting many calls from the public -- pregnant women calling to
say they're scared for their babies and people asking if it's okay to go to
Ticino for holiday,'' said Surbeck, referring to the Italian-speaking southern
Swiss canton. 

``But we hope it's all over now,'' he told Reuters. The Swiss pride themselves
on their clean environment and good air quality. The mountainous country has
set up a vast network of radioactive monitoring since Chernobyl. 

Gennady Sushkevich, a medical doctor at the environmental health office of the
World Health Organisation, said the levels were not dangerous and too low to
contaminate the food chain. 

Surbeck said the contamination was caused by Caesium-137, which he said was
the ``signature'' of Chernobyl and may suggest fallout from it. But he said
the levels were 10,000 times below the concentration released by the Chernobyl
nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986, the world's worst nuclear
disaster. 

The ensuing radioactive cloud poisoned vast areas in Russia, Ukraine and
Belarus and drifted over parts of Western Europe. 

In May, France's independent CRII-RAD laboratory said it found high levels of
Caesium-137 high in the Alpine mountains of Austria, France, Italy and
Switzerland and called for regular monitoring of water and food for possible
contamination. 

Scientists were mystified by the unexplained surge. ``The French are working
very hard to find the source. Until they find the source, everybody will be
nervous,'' said Manfred Hoefert, an expert at the European Particle Physics
Laboratory CERN on the French-Swiss border. 

Possible sources could include a nuclear reactor, an accident or burning of a
Caesium-137 source -- used for medical and industrial purposes -- that may
release it into the air. 

Surbeck said samples taken showed radioactivity levels in southern France of
1,000 to 2,000 microbequerels per cubic metre detected by filters in place for
one day. 

Those findings and Swiss surveillance pointed to similar high levels in
Switzerland early in June, he added. The normal level is between two to three
microbequerels per cubic metre. 

The southern side of the Alps were affected more than the north as the
contaminated cloud hovered there after winds blew the radioactivity from south
or southwest of Switzerland -- anywhere from southern France or Italy to north
Africa. 


Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.All rights reserved.