Elevator maker Otis will replace hundreds of lift buttons in
France after authorities found radioactive materials imported from
India at a supplier factory, a source at Otis said.
The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said about 20 workers at
the plant run by the firm Mafelec, which makes lift buttons in the
eastern Isere area, had been exposed to levels of radioactivity
above legal norms.
"The most important point is that the lift buttons do not represent
any risk to people's health," said the source at Otis, who declined
to be named.
He estimated that contaminated buttons were installed at between
350 and 500 sites around the country.
Only buttons delivered between August 21 and October 10 are
concerned.
Otis will trace all of those, test them, and replace those found
to be radioactive as a precautionary measure, the source
said.
The ASN said it had classified the incident at Mafelec at level 2
on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
The scale goes from zero, which means no safety risk, to seven,
which means a major accident.
In a statement posted on its website (
www.asn.fr), the authority said the
Mafelec plant had received materials contaminated by cobalt-60, a
radioactive substance, from India.
It said it had contacted nuclear safety agencies in several
countries to exchange information about the incident, and the
Swedish agency had said some contaminated supplies had been found
in Sweden too.
The ASN said five Indian companies had sent products tainted with
cobalt-60 to various countries, and said it was in touch with
Indian authorities over tests being conducted there.
The Mafelec workers were exposed to doses of radioactivity ranging
from one to three millisievert (mSv).
The French legal limit for people who do not work in the nuclear industry is one mSv per year.
However, French media quoted medical experts as saying exposure to a three mSv dose did not represent a big health risk.
