A photo from open sources
In Austrian Salzburg, a rather frightening event occurred. Local officials were shocked when they learned that in one of high schools of the city at the exhibition in the classroom for many years lay a piece uranium.
Dangerous metal was discovered quite by accident when in educational institution came activist. The school was instantly closed, but all her students are currently undergoing a medical examination. Besides Moreover, the Austrian authorities have already decided to check for radioactive elements all schools in the country.
To thank for such a find is necessary a civil activist Thomas Neff, who visited the school to tell children about the dangers of radiation. A man had a geiger counter with him and old watches manufactured in the sixties of the past century. Neff showed students a radio-covered dial and explained that before, when little was known about the dangers radiation, radium was used to make the clock glow in in the dark.
Negligence in working with radioactive substances
Once at this school, the activist unexpectedly noticed that Geiger counter began to detect the presence of intense radioactive background. Surprised Thomas quickly determined that radiation comes from the office of geography, where there was geological exhibition of minerals, fossils and rocks. One of the stones, which had a silver-white color, turned out to be a piece uranium rock. Near it, a meter registered one hundred two thousand pulses per minute, while permissible for human only twenty are the norm.
A photo from open sources
The activist personally evacuated all schoolchildren and immediately summoned specialists. Now experts determine what damage radiation could cause students.
It is noteworthy that in Austria have already been checked for similar “surprises” to three hundred and sixty-three schools, and at thirty eight of them turned out to be collections containing volumes of uranium rocks. Who should be blamed for such malpractice is still unknown.
This incident is reminiscent of the terrible tragedy that occurred in 1980-1989 in the city of Kramatorsk, Ukrainian SSR. In one of apartments of new buildings began to die from cancer residents. In just nine two adults and four children died here, and seventeen citizens became disabled. It subsequently became clear that builders accidentally walled up a radioactive capsule in the wall, lost from the measuring device. Almost a decade a radioactive substance hidden in the wall poisoned the unfortunate residents, not even suspecting what was the reason for their misfortunes.
