A team of experts from the Department of Atomic Energy on Sunday carried out decontamination procedures in parts of Mayapuri here following reports of high radiation levels in its scrap market.
The experts also held a meeting with scrap dealers late last evening and apprised them of the measures they planned to carry out in the area.
Advocacy group Greenpeace had claimed that there were at least eight hotspots in the Mayapuri scrap market where radiation levels were much higher than normal.
A person who stands continuously about a metre away from a hotspot for five days is likely to receive the maximum allowed dose of radiation, said Jan Vande Putte, a Greenpeace radiation safety expert.
“At a distance of 10cm, a person needs to stand only for two hours for maximum dose,” he said.
According to experts, there were at least two places in the market where attempts were made to break the parts of the gamma irradiator containing Cobalt-60, which was auctioned as scrap by Delhi University’s chemistry department two months ago.
Tiny particles of radioactive material had got mixed with the soil and nuclear experts have been engaged in clearing the area of such contaminated stuff, officials said.
