My Bloody Valentine (1981)
p-o-s-s-e-s-s-e-d-b-y-f-i-r-e:
- the accident of Cesium-137 in Brazil
01 - now, this particular event proves how creative brazilian people can get, even when it comes to spreading radioactive materials (proving once again that we’re the superior race) it is cited as one of the worst nuclear disasters and one of the world’s worst radiological incidents
02 - Cesium 137 (this is how we refer to the accident locally, so i’ll use the terminology on this thread) happened on 1987. it killed 4 people and infected nearly 2k people indirectly. it’s a 5 level radioactive accident, in a scale that goes from 0 to 7. so yeah it was kinda bad
03 - here’s how it started: this hospital closed down and left some of its equipment in the abandoned site, rather than properly disposing of it. although the government was aware of the abandoned radioactive material in the building, a court order impeded them from removing it
a security guard was posted at the site to protect the abandoned equipment. however, during his absence on september 18th, two scavengers entered the facility and disassembled the radiotherapy machine. believing it would have some selling value, they took it home with them
that’s when the first signs of contamination began to appear — they started vomiting, and the scavenger Pereira experienced diarrhea and dizziness and his hand started to swell, before a burn developed on it. Pereira visited a clinic and his symptoms were diagnosed as food poison
the other scavenger, Alves, carried on dismantling the equipment. he freed the cesium from its protective capsule, by tearing a puncture on it. he was amazed by the deep blue light coming from it (cesium is known to glow in the dark) and believed it to be some sort of gunpowder
Alves sold the items to a scrapyard on september 21st, owned by Devair. Devair was enchanted by the blue glow coming from inside the capsule, believing it to be valuable or even supernatural. he brought it home, having invited friends n family to see the strange glowing substance
Devair’s wife, Maria Gabriela, began to fall ill that same day, and Devair sold the scrap metal to another scrapyard. but before that, Devair’s brother, Ivo, scraped some of the glowing dust out of the source and took it home to show to his 6 year old daughter, Leide das Neves
04 - Leide das Neves was fascinated by the blue glow, and started to play with it. she applied it to her body as well as eating it, when the substance fell to her meal (and she probably didn’t wash her hands). the amount of radiation she received was enough to eventually kill her
05 - Maria Gabriela soon started to notice that everybody around her and the neighborhood was falling ill, and she assumed the powder was responsible for it. so, on september 28th, she took the matter to the authorities
06 - only on september 29th the government issued an alert about the radioactive contamination. both Maria Gabriela and Leide das Neves were taken to a hospital in Rio de Janeiro for better treatment
07 - the government tried to hide the accident, telling the terrified population that a gas leak had happened. still, the local population was triaged to assess whether they had been contaminated or not. over 1600 people were affected and about 250 showed signs of radiation sickness
08 - Leide das Neves died on October 23rd, and was buried in a common cemetery in Goiânia in a special coffin to prevent the radiation from spreading. on the day of her burial, there was a riot of over 2k people in the cemetery, all scared that her body’d poison the surrounding land
09 - Brazilian hazmat workers removing a capsule from the scene of the Goiânia Incident in 1987 which killed 4 people and exposed 249 others to dangerous doses of radiation.
