Aftermath of a Nuclear Spill

By Richard Stengel

An accident in Mexico exposes scores of people to radiation

Victims are not usually culprits, but Vincente Sotelo is both. Sotelo, 29, unwittingly caused what some U.S. scientists are calling the worst nuclear accident ever in North America. As a result, he and 200 other residents of Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican town just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, are undergoing long-term tests for possible radiation poisoning, a condition that could result in genetic damage or cancer. Although Mexican authorities have been playing down the crisis, the people of Ciudad Juarez are the potential victims of exposure to dangerous levels of radiation.

The sequence of events that led to the disaster began last November. Sotelo, then a $35-a-week hospital electrician with a family of three, took a milk bottle-size, stainless-steel canister from the hospital's warehouse. Sotelo says hospital administrators had given him permission to sell leftover utensils for scrap. He heaved the canister into the back of a hospital truck and hauled it to a local junkyard, where a dealer gave him $10 for it. Unfortunately, Sotelo and the dealer were unaware that the canister was part of a radiography machine and contained a capsule that held approximately 6,000 pinhead pellets of cobalt 60, a powerful isotope used in the treatment of cancer. Later, at some undetermined point, the capsule in the canister broke open; hundreds of pellets were subsequently scattered throughout the truck and the junkyard. Even the junkyard's paperwork later proved to be radioactive. Many of the pellets in the dusty lot were pulverized and mixed up with the heaps of metal scrap.

Over the next two months, 20 junkyard workers were exposed to various levels of radiation. According to doctors, at least four of these men received very high doses. Two of the four absorbed 100 times the maximum amount of gamma rays that U.S. nuclear workers are allowed to receive in an entire year. One of the pair has sore gums; the other suffered nosebleeds. Says one investigating doctor: "Their chances of developing cancer are probably pretty good." The junkyard laborers are not the only ones at risk. The heavily contaminated truck that Sotelo had driven sat idle for two months on a narrow street in the town's crowded Bellavista neighborhood. (The vehicle was later removed to a compound near Juarez, and then to an isolated area 20 miles from the city.) "Children played on the truck," says Sotelo. "People would stand beside it, talking, and lean back on it."

The area of hazard grew even wider as radioactive scrap from the junkyard was transported to two Mexican foundries, one in Ciudad Juarez, the other 220 miles south in Chihuahua. According to Jose Antonio Rotonda of the Mexican Nuclear Commission, radioactive pellets that had adhered to scraps in the truck fell off en route to Chihuahua, and eight pockets of contamination have been discovered between the two cities.

In a Ciudad Juarez foundry, the scrap was turned into table pedestals that were shipped across the border but later tracked down. U.S. officials say they are almost certain that all of the contaminated legs were returned to Mexico. In Chihuahua, the junkyard material was converted into steel reinforcing rods, and according to Mexican officials, about 500 tons of this hot steel were shipped to the U.S. The rods were used in the construction of at least two houses near Farmington, N. Mex., and the owners had to replace their radioactive foundations. An additional 3,500 tons of steel remained in Mexico. Thus far, 30 to 40 houses built with the contaminated metal have been found in four Mexican cities.

Many of the residents of Ciudad Juarez are both bewildered and resentful. Some citizens do not understand what radiation is. Notes Sotelo's wife Alicia: "Down at the laundry, people asked the owner to keep me from going in. They thought I had some sort of contagious disease." To complicate matters, Mexican authorities have been reluctant to tell those who may have been exposed to radiation what the consequences might be. Says Sotelo: "They've said it could have long-term effects, but they haven't said what those effects are."

Roberto Trevino, the technical secretary of Mexico's National Nuclear Safety and Safeguards Commission, stresses that "there is no danger now." Nonetheless, two technicians are still searching for radioactive material on the Chihuahua-Ciudad Juarez highway, and the U.S. Department of Energy has conducted an airborne scan of the contaminated areas. The accident is a symptom of a larger problem, insists Antonio Ponce, a representative of Mexico's Nuclear Workers Union. He charges that the nuclear commission has been lax in cracking down on firms that handle radioactive material carelessly. Responds Trevino: "Their accusations are unfounded. The commission has technically done what it could."

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has also launched an inquiry into the incident. While the uncertainty lingers, Mexican engineers continue to clean up the junkyard, laboriously clearing away the top layer of soil. But not even such a thorough scouring will suffice to sweep away the fears of Sotelo and his neighbors.

--By Richard Stengel. Reported aaby Matt Pritchard/Ciudad Juarez and Gail Seekamp/Mexico City

With reporting by Matt Pritchard, Juarez, Gail Seekamp