One more spill at Rio Tinto uranium mine
The Rossing uranium mine is the longest-running and one of the largest open pit uranium mines in the world, located in the Namib Desert.
A week before Rio Tinto’s (ASX: RIO) Ranger uranium mine in Australia’s Northern Territory spilled a million litres of radioactive slurry, a similar accident had happened at the company’s Rossing Uranium mine in Africa, the company confirmed Wednesday.
Rio’s second major radioactive incident this month occurred on December 3, after one of 12 leach tanks in the processing plant at Rossing, located in the Namib Desert, failed.
The company, however, did not say how much of the radioactive slurry – which, like the Ranger spill, also contained acid – was spilled.
What Rio did say was that some employees were treated at the scene for “minor” injuries and that there was no environmental impact. It added the leach tank had structural damage and that the company was investigating the cause of the spill.
A Northern Territory Environment Centre spokeswoman told ABC News that the situation was “very concerning.”
“Across two continents, within the same week, we have seen the same copy cat failure (…) It is just incredible that these types of incidents are happening on this scale,” she was quoted as saying.
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3 Comments
Guest
The most troubling aspect is the lack of details provided to the general public.
mike
Don’t get too excited…..it comes out of the ground and when it spills it goes back into the ground – full circle !
Resource worker
Despite being very pro resource, I think these “accidents” have to be severly dealt with. The company should be fined till it really hurts because these are spills that absolutely did not need to happen. You can run a mine spill free if you pay attention to detail. It is sloppy operating and the manager should be fired along with any other responsible parties..