Editing Dirty bomb (section)

== Accidents with radioactives ==
{{See also|Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents|Goiânia accident}}
The effects of uncontrolled [[radioactive contamination]] have been reported several times.

One example is the [[Goiania accident|radiological accident]] occurring in [[Goiânia]], Brazil, between September 1987 and March 1988: Two [[metal theft|metal scavengers]] broke into an abandoned [[radiotherapy]] clinic and removed a [[teletherapy]] source capsule containing powdered caesium-137 with an activity of 50 T[[Becquerel|Bq]]. They brought it back to the home of one of the men to take it apart and sell as scrap metal. Later that day both men were showing acute signs of radiation illness with [[vomiting]] and one of them had a swollen hand and [[diarrhea]]. A few days later one of the men punctured the {{convert|1|mm|in|adj=mid|-thick}} thick window of the capsule, allowing the [[caesium chloride]] powder to leak out and when realizing the powder glowed blue in the dark, brought it back home to his family and friends to show it off. After two weeks of spread by contact contamination causing an increasing number of adverse health effects, the correct diagnosis of acute [[radiation sickness]] was made at a hospital and proper precautions could be put into procedure. By this time 249 people were contaminated, 151 exhibited both external and internal contamination, of whom 20 people were seriously ill and five people died.<ref>King (2004); Zimmerman and Loeb (2004); Sohier and Hardeman (2006)</ref>

The Goiânia incident to some extent predicts the contamination pattern if it is not immediately realized that the explosion spread radioactive material, but also how fatal even very small amounts of ingested radioactive powder can be.<ref name="Zimmerman and Loeb">Zimmerman and Loeb (2004)</ref> This raises worries of terrorists using powdered [[alpha particle|alpha]] emitting material, that if ingested can pose a serious health risk,<ref>Mullen et al. (2002); Reshetin (2005)</ref> as [[Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko|in the case of Alexander Litvinenko]], who was poisoned by tea with [[polonium-210]]. "Smoky bombs" based on alpha emitters might be just as dangerous as [[beta particle|beta]] or [[gamma ray|gamma]] emitting dirty bombs.<ref>Zimmerman (2006)</ref>