William Satish, who often collaborates with me on Chennai photography, asked me if I recalled the major flap in the 1990s when radioactive material was dumped in the Cooum. How could I ever forget it? That was the week when I took up residence in the city, little realising how closely I would be involved in documenting its past then. And the Napier’s Bridge was the scene of action.
The news broke when the Indian arm of an American company, famed for oil drilling, with its office just outside Madras, reported that it was missing a certain quantity of two chemicals: Caesium-137 and Americium-beryllium. The first was radioactive and had made it to the news in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster. The Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) had imported these chemicals and handed them over to the American company, which stored them in its Madras office.
Act of revenge
In September 1993, the company ordered the transfer of one of its employees, and he was not happy with it. In an act of revenge, though it is not clear as to what he hoped to achieve by it, he decided to steal the precious chemicals and fling them into the Cooum. Probably realising that he would expose himself to radiation if he did it all by himself, he roped in two others from the company. The chemicals were duly stolen, placed in a common cloth-lined envelope, and taken by two-wheeler, each of the three carrying the loot for a while, no doubt with a view to minimising their radiation risk. The envelope was flung from the Napier’s Bridge into the city’s long-suffering river.
Back at the company, the crime was detected and the Madras police alerted. The ONGC was informed. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), too, had to be roped in. The three employees were rounded up and held under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. Interrogation by the Crime Branch revealed as to where the envelope lay, but the bigger challenge was fishing it out. The Cooum in 1993 was not much better than what it is now. For once, the sludge in the river had been of use, for it trapped the envelope and prevented it floating out to the sea!
That was an era when no social media existed but when news broke in print, panic and much curiosity ensued. People began collecting in large numbers near the the Napier’s Bridge, unmindful of radiation fears. The place was eventually cordoned off and retrieval efforts began. Arc lights were installed to facilitate operations at night. Fears of the chemical leaching into the water were allayed by the AEC. In a statement, it said each chemical was in capsule form inside two stainless steel, pressure-tested containers. These were tiny and weighed 500 gms. The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre was called in to detect radiation levels in the vicinity. It reported that there was none. The risk of the envelope tearing and the containers breaking during rescue, however, was real.
Sent to jail
Studies by IIT Madras revealed that the precious cargo lay under five feet of water and four feet of slush. On October 10, 1993, a giant crane lowered a heavy hollow cylinder around the identified spot. The Fire Services began the extremely tricky task of bailing out the water from within the cylinder. The task was completed on October 12 and the contents were retrieved. With that, the city and all the major agencies involved in the operation heaved a sigh of relief. The three accused were sentenced to four years of rigorous imprisonment.
(V. Sriram is a writer and historian.)
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