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. 

All videos on the channel are creative  commons Attribution-ShareAlike. 

Plainly difficult videos are produced by me John,  in a sunny Southeastern corner of london, uk. 

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