Today’s video is sponsored by Nord vpn, but more on that later.
It is April 1997, and a soldier presents himself to Medical doctors from the Georgian Army.
He had been working at the lilo training base
around 25km east of the nation capital tbilisi. Ti-Bili-si
He has unexplained burns and marks on his skin,
odd thinks the doctor but he is sent off to tbilisi for burns treatment,
over the next 2 months more men report with similar unexplained injuries.
Worryingly these symptoms are remarkably similar to radiation exposure, surely that can’t be right.
The mystery of the patients' illnesses would be tracked down to where they worked,
hinting at months of prolonged exposure to which the victims were unaware.
Upon searching the site multiple radioactive sources would be found, but the more they find
the bigger the mystery as to where they came from.
Today we are looking at the kilo radiological event and I’m going to rate it here
3 on my disaster scale and here 3 on my legacy scale, let’s see if my ratings are correct.
Our story, like many I’ve covered, starts with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Georgia is a transcontinental country located between Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
The country had become under the influence of the after the Soviet Unions rise to power,
and fell behind the iron curtain throughout the 20th century.
As such the red army had postings throughout the
country and one such place was in the village of lilo.
This small and relatively unknown village does have one big claim to fame,
as it was the birthplace of Bes-arion Jughashvili Jugash-vili who is that
you may ask... but you most certainly have heard of his son, Joseph Stalin.
As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate at the end of the 1980s the Georgian
government sensing the change in the air declared independence on 9 April 1991.
In 1992 the Russian soldiers based in lilo handed over the site, during their vacating
of the area they didn’t tell the Georgian authorities what the base was used for
instead leaving a semi disused compound.
The lilo military base would be repurposed for border force training
in the new independent Georgian army.
Although a bit of a dump site to begin with,
the lilo complex seemed ok, pretty much what you’d expect from an abandoned army base.
There were three main areas: the management and living area, which included several buildings for
soldiers and officers ; the living quarters, where some of the officers lived with their families;
and the empty buildings used for training.
In total The centre covers approximately 150 000 m3.
And as far as the new owners were aware nothing strange presented itself about the base,
until 1997 when a number of soldiers began to report some strange alements.
The first of the soldiers to report to army doctors had experienced burns on
his body as early as June 1996, after having such unexplained rashes similar
to an extreme kitchen burn he reported to a medical examiner.
The doctor, confused by these injuries, and knowing where the soldier worked,
lilo, sent the man off to tbilisi for burn treatment.
The soldier would eventually be sent abroad for treatment of his skin conditions but only
the symptoms were looked at rather than the cause.
When more soldiers with similar issues came to see army doctors
the unexplainable burns and contact dermatitis couldn’t be written off as just one oddity,
strangely most of the men had a characteristic burn on their chest.
This pointed at the soldiers environment as all had been based in lilo, upon reviewing
the soldiers injuries the medical staff all pointed to one thing: radiation exposure but how?
The military are trained for the effects of a nuclear war but it didn’t add up,
a second opinion was sought from a haematologist
and a dosimetrist from the Institute of Biophysics in Moscow in august 97.
The diagnosis of the burns was confirmed
to be that of a radiation exposure and a prolonged one at that.
One of the soldiers had been recruited as early as 1995,
with many others joining in 96 could they have been exposed all that time?
On the 27th august, : A radiation hot spot was discovered at the Lilo Base
near an underground shelter.
The survey was carried out by officers from the Chemical,
Radiological and Biological Protection Division of the Georgian Army.
This was later double checked on the 5th September.
The dose rate was measured at 45 mGy/h.
The Georgian authorities contacted the Safety and Radiation Protection
Department of the Centre of Applied Research of the Institute of Physics,
this along with the army secured the required monitoring equipment needed to survey the hotspot.
A working group of physicists was established to assess
and survey the radiological situation at the site on the 10th September.
They started close to the underground shelter and localised the source of the radiation,
but due to the team having no suitable container, recovery was delayed until the 13th September.
The source was found inside the pocket of a winter army jacket that was used
by the Georgian soldiers during guard duty, once extracted it was placed inside a lead container.
But this wouldn’t be the end of lilos contamination,
but before we come on to that let’s talk about this video's sponsor Nord vpn….
Let’s go back to lilo and the unfolding radiological
nightmare facing Georgian authorities.
After the initial source was recovered more radiation above the background had
been discovered, located 130m from the underground shelter
near some offices and buried 30 cm below the surface of the soil.
This was also recovered, but more radiation was present, this led the team to near the
smoking area also buried, in just 1 day 3 items of sizable radioactivity
were discovered and by now there was only 1 option available, survey the whole military base.
It seemed like the entire site had varying levels of contamination with
1 more source discovered on the 14th, 3 more on the 19th and 1 more on the 20th.
Not only that but 2 more sources were found inside lead containers
abandoned on site as well as something that would have made david hahn proud,
some 200 devices containing ra226 used for gun sights.
Once all the radioactive items were collected and contained they were stored
correctly on-site next to the scrap yard to await proper disposal.
The radiological waste was still yet to be determined to the exact radionuclide involved
but after gamma absorption measurements were carried out using a lead screen,
cs137 was determined to be amongst the waste onsite a deadly gamma ray emitter.
On 9 October 1997, the IAEA were contacted by the Minister of Health of Georgia
stating that nine servicemen of the Lilo Training Detachment of Frontier Troops
had developed local radiation induced skin diseases on various parts of their bodies.
In turn the IAEA then informed the WHO and Georgia requested assistance.
The Minister requested the IAEA to assist in the examination and treatment of the patients.
The IAEA attended the site between the 11-14 October 1997.
They set out to survey the site and they concluded no other sources were still around
the highest levels were recorded off the first discovery at 164 GBq giving out
13,000 uGy/hr 1 meter from the source,
when exposed to this for prolonged periods of time Acute radiation Syndrome can be experienced.
With that let’s look at the exposed personnel and their experience.
The total number of people affected by the orphaned sources was 11 and they ranged
from a dose 1.6 to 0.1 gray, for reference 3 gray or above in a single dose can be deadly.
Before hospitalisation all but 1 of the exposed persons experienced nausea,
loss of appetite, tiredness and weakness.
The first patient was sent to tbilisi
for care at the Russian military hospital where he was diagnosed with a non radiation based condition
in July in 1996, almost a whole year before the discovery at lilo.
After receiving a failed skin graft and with other patients presenting with similar conditions he was
readmitted in October and diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome, subacute phase and radiation
burns of the fourth degree to both thighs. Treatment of the remaining overexposed persons
was performed at the Curie Institute and the Percy Hospital of the Armed Forces, both in
Paris, and in the Dermatology Department of the University of Ulm at the Armed Forces Hospital in
Ulm, Germany, this was arranged for by the WHO. On 22 October 1997, two patients were admitted
to the Curie Institute and two to the Percy Hospital of the Armed Forces. The
remaining seven patients were hospitalized in the Dermatology Department of the University of Ulm
at the Armed Forces Hospital on 29 October 1997. 6 of the lessor injured soldiers were discharged
from hospital and were allowed to return to georgia, each would still have painful movement
and psychological issues for years to come. The 5 of the remaining had to undergo a
nightmarish number of skin grafts amputations and multiple surgeries to remove necrosis of the skin.
One of the men lost his fingers on his right hand, and all 5 had to undergo multiple treatments
to heal recurrent radiation induced ulcers. 2 had to keep on intermittent treatment
all the way into the early 2000’s and this was accompanied with lower t cell counts.
But there is still the big question why on earth was the army base at lilo so contaminated,
well when the russians pulled out they didn't tell anyone completely what they had been doing there.
Instead of it being a usual army base, it was used to train soviet soldiers
in the event of a nuclear accident or nuclear war. The sources were used for calibration of survey
equipment and for training in radiological monitoring, the reason for the buried sources
was to train soldiers in radiation detection. These sources rather than properly disposed
of were just left in situ and the only possible outcome then played out
on the unsuspecting Georgian soldiers. Georgia apparently is one of the big
dumping grounds of soviet era nuclear devices, as multiple RTG’s, and scrap radioactive sources
kept on being found during the 1990s, one of which i Have covered in a previous video.
It is thought many ex soviet union states still have hundreds
of orphaned sources, waiting to be discovered. This video is a Plainly Difficult production.
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