Radioactive equipment looted in foreclosed paper factory

The Department of Science and Technology sounded yesterday an alarm over radioactive materials looted from an abandoned paper company in Mapulang Lupa, Valenzuela. According to Eulinia Valdezco, chief of the Nuclear Regulation, Licensing and Safety Division of DOST’s Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, three units of equipment containing Krypton-85 were missing from the Paper City Corp. of the Philippines.

The PNRI learned about the looting from barangay officials in Mapulang Lupa four or five weeks ago. The officials were aware of the presence of radioactive materials there because of warning signs posted in the facility.

"We’ve already exhausted all means to find the Krypton but nothing happened. So we decided to seek the help of the media to ask the public to relay any information about it," she told The STAR.

PNRI had already coordinated with various hospitals for any patient that could have been exposed to Krypton-85 and the Association of Scrap Metal Dealers but to no avail.

Krypton-85 is used by PNRI-licensed PCCP for measuring the density, thickness and weight of paper. It is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas encased in titanium capsule shielded inside a steel container.

Valdezco said if Krypton is still intact in the container, a person exposed to it at a distance of one foot would sustain a radiation dose of 1,330 mijlliSieverts per hour which could result to third degree burns in minutes.

Krypton is safer when released and blended into the air. The gas does not pose any ingestion or inhalation hazard to an exposed person because it is not absorbed by the body tissue and does not interrupt any biological process.

She noted the paper company was still in operation when the PNRI last inspected the facility sometime in 2004.

The company apparently went into bankruptcy and was abandoned by its owners whose names were not immediately available. The facility had been foreclosed by the bank.