Missing radioactive capsule found in Australian outback after huge search

Published

3 years ago

February 1, 2023

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A radioactive capsule that fell off a truck in the Australian outback – sparking a radiation alert and a search of hundreds of miles of road – has been found.

Western Australia’s emergency services minister said the silver capsule, which emits the isotope Caesium-137, had been located about two metres from the roadside.

Authorities were hunting for the 6mm by 8mm capsule and retracing the truck’s 870-mile (1,400km) route with radiation-scanning gear.

The military was checking the capsule and it was due to be taken to a secure facility in Perth.

Minister Stephen Dawson called it an “extraordinary result”.

How was the capsule found?

It took several government agencies six days to find the missing capsule.

The search involved Western Australia’s emergency response department, police, fire and rescue service, along with Australia’s Department of Defence, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, and the Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organisation.

They retraced the capsule’s 870-mile journey along the Great Northern Highway and other roads in both directions using vehicles fitted with specialist radiation equipment capable of flagging up the isotope Caesium-137 inside.

The vehicles travelled at “slow speeds” and eventually detected the capsule as it drove past it at 43mph.

Niall Monaghan, senior physicist at Radiation Consultancy Services Ltd, tells Sky News it would have been easy to detect with a moving vehicle.

“It’s pretty radioactive, so you would see it pretty easily with a basic detector – even travelling at 40mph.

“Caesium-137 gives off Gamma rays, which penetrate more than X-rays.

“So at that intensity, the capsule would be easily picked up by a detector like a Geiger counter – the ones you see in films that crackle when they find something.

“If you were going really fast you might miss it, but it’s the same as if it was dark and you were looking for something that glows – you would still see it.”

Authorities previously said it would take five days to retrace the route, with minister Stephen Dawson describing the end result as “quite literally finding the needle in the haystack”.

“When you consider the scope of the research area, locating this object was a monumental challenge, the search groups have quite literally found the needle in the haystack,” he said.

The capsule was found when a vehicle with scanning equipment picked up radiation as it drove past at about 43mph (70kmh).

People had been warned of potential radiation burns, sickness, and damage to their immune and gastrointestinal systems if they came closer than five metres to the capsule.

Driving past was described as much lower risk however, similar to having an X-ray.

It was discovered far from any community and it is unlikely anyone would have been exposed to its radiation, said Western Australia‘s chief health officer Andrew Robertson.

The capsule is owned by mining firm Rio Tinto and is part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore.

Vibrations during transportation are believed to have caused screws and a bolt to come loose from the gauge, allowing it to fall out.

The search area was vast as the truck covered a distance longer than Britain on its journey from the Gudai-Darri mine, in the remote Kimberley region, to the Perth suburbs.

Police, the defence department and Australia’s nuclear agency were all involved after the capsule was reported missing on 25 January.

They had been scouring the state’s Great Northern Highway as well as other sections of the route used by the road train – a truck pulling multiple trailers.

Some 410 miles (660km) had been searched by Tuesday.

Rio Tinto, which gave the capsule to another company to transport, apologised for the “very concerning” incident and said it had launched its own investigation.

Authorities are doing their own probe but under 1975 state laws the fine for mishandling radioactive substances is currently only A$1,000 – and A$50 per day the offence continues.

“That figure is ridiculously low,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

“But I suspect that it’s ridiculously low because people didn’t think such an item could be lost.”

Police have looked at bringing potential criminal charges but have concluded there is no case to answer.

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Famine declared in Gaza City – and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

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1 hour ago

August 22, 2025

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Famine declared in Gaza City - and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.

These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.

The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.

Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.

Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.

Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.

Israel says no famine in Gaza

Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.

Israel accused of allowing famine to fester in Gaza

Tom Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the United Nations, did not mince his words.

Gaza was suffering from famine, the evidence was irrefutable and Israel had not just obstructed aid but had also used hunger as a weapon of war.

His anger seeped through every sentence, just as desperation is laced through the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Conditions are expected to worsen, it says, even though the Gaza Strip has been classified as a level 5 famine. There is no level 6.

But it took only moments for the Israeli government to respond in terms that were just as strident.

Read Adam Parsons’ analysis here.

Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”

Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.

Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.

“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.

The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.

The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.

The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.

But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.

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Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine’s army, Sky News understands

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1 hour ago

August 22, 2025

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Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine's army, Sky News understands

The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.

Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.

It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.

According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.

When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.

The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.

Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.

At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.

He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.

After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.

Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.

He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.

While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.

The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.

In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.

German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.

Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.

The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.

According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.

Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.

On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.