Workers tasked with cleansing the decommissioned Dounreay nuclear facility in northern Scotland have been evacuated from the site after “human error” resulted in low-level radioactive contamination, it has been revealed.
After an worker detected the contamination, an additional investigation was rapidly launched revealing a number of different “hot-spots” across the facility. Workers have been instantly pressured to vacate the world and work briefly suspended, reported the Aberdeen-based Press and Journal.
Site managing director Martin Moore advised a stakeholder group on Wednesday that the contamination had been “insignificant,” and was a results of a “lack of due diligence in monitoring around one of the barriers.”
It was human error. It shouldn’t have occurred and we’re very upset that it did.
The incident really passed off on June 7, but it surely was solely revealed to the public on Wednesday. Some individuals expressed anger that there was no public assertion made on the day it occurred, though the Office for Nuclear Regulation was reportedly knowledgeable.
Officials from Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), the corporate tasked with decommissioning the plant, stated that the measure had been precautionary and that the general public was by no means in any hazard.
There was no danger to members of the general public, no elevated danger to the workforce and no launch to the setting.
DSRL has been working to decommission the site, which was shut down in 1994. Although they’re additionally tasked with guaranteeing the world is decontaminated and clear of nuclear waste, they’ve already been censured for a security violation at the identical site in 2014, when a hearth attributable to workers launched radioactivity into the ambiance.