Radioactive tiles on Nezalezhnasti Square

The paving flags on Nezalezhnasti Square in Minsk have higher radiation background. It is strongly prohibited to use such flags on the city territory. The officials leant yet in May that the radiation background was twice as much as maximum allowed, but the dangerous tiles still have been “decorating” the square.

“The effective power of gamma rays of the paving flags exceeds the radiation background by 0.2 µSv/h. It is inadmissible in construction work and building”, - it is written in the test report of radioactive security and labour protection department at Institution of Energy and Nuclear Researches “Sosny”.

It is interesting to note that the Main Department on Economic Crimes and Corruption of Ministry of Internal Affairs ordered to have May laboratory researches. Thus, not radiation, but economic crimes were searched on the square. Maybe that’s why the officials don’t know what to do with the granite slabs for as much as half a year…

The head of the radiation security department at institution “Sosny” Aliaksandr Mazanik has confirmed to Euroradio the information about the higher radioactivity of paving flags. According to him, the researches were organized not to determine danger of the slabs for health, but to check … the certificates of conformance.

According to the scientist, the paving flags had the high radiation background from the very beginning, before the manufacturing treatment. It means there was radiation background in the open pit, from where granite was delivered to a plant.

The specialists made one more conclusion: it is forbidden to pave such flags in a city: “Such constructional materials can be used in road building beyond the populated sites”. But the head of the department of radiation security refused to tell about the danger of the slabs for the health of people and whether it is safe to sit there.

It is a shortened version of the material. Full version available on Euroradio