A Russian expert extracts radioisotopes from a container in Kaliningrad
© AFP/File BRUSSELS (AFP) - Police cars cruised the streets of the southern Belgian town of Fleurus giving the town's 20,000 residents instructions over loudspeakers about precautionary measures.
The town's population and residents of villages within a five-kilometre radius were asked not to eat fruit and vegetables from gardens or drink milk from neighboring farms until further notice, said mayor Jean-Luc Borremans.
Although the leak was deemed to be the most serious ever in Belgium, authorities had at first said that it was not bad enough to require any precautionary actions but have since changed their tune.
"The population is worried, it's normal. All things nuclear scare people. But I have confidence in the experts who tell me that it's without danger and that only precautionary measures are needed," he said.
"There's been an incident and not an accident. I don't want people to think that there's been a nuclear incident," he told AFP.
The incident occurred last weekend at the Institut des Radioelements, a laboratory which makes radioisotopes used in medical imaging and treating cancer.
Staff detected a leak of radioactive iodine in a ventilation chimney and alerted Belgium's Federal Nuclear Safety Control.
The agency gave the leak a rating of three out of seven on an international scale for nuclear incidents, making it the most serious ever detected in in the kingdom.
The lab halted production on Tuesday, but the agency said the same day that the leak did not represent a risk to residents in the area or the environment and did not recommend any steps be taken.
However, authorities changed their minds on Thursday evening after analysis of grass samples taken from the site suggested that radioactive iodine levels were higher than the first tests indicated.
The government decided during a meeting at its crisis centre late Thursday to call on residents to take precautionary measures while more tests were carried out.
The mayor of the nearby city of Charleroi Jean-Jacques Vivier said he was "surprised" and "unhappy" that he had not been warned about the situation while environmentalists criticized the government and the lab for dragging their feet.
Borremans said that Fleurus residents were getting increasingly alarmed, wondering whether they should take iodine capsules that are supposed to be taken in case of a nuclear pollution, which he said was not necessary.
The laboratory is the second biggest producer of medical radioisotopes in the world and it warned earlier this week that hospitals in several countries could face a shortage if its production remains halted for very long.
"It's a company that has a not-negligible humanitarian role so we have to keep cool heads," Borremans said.
©AFP