Indonesia Probes Suspected Nuclear Waste Dumping at Housing Estate

摘要

Authorities in Indonesia have launched an investigation following the discovery of radioactive contamination in an empty lot in a housing complex near a nuclear research facility. The Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency, or Bapeten, recorded elevated levels of the radioactive isotope caesium-137 from a routine test at the estate in South Tangerang, a satellite city of Jakarta. The agency has since 2013 conducted regular checks in the estate, which is part of a complex that includes a research reactor run by the National Nuclear Energy Agency, or Batan. Radiation levels in the empty lot showed 680 millisieverts (mSv) per hour when experts checked at the end of January. That's about the same as the maximum level of radiation that workers responding to the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan in 2011 were exposed to. The normal level determined by Indonesian regulators is 0.03 mSv per hour.