China is facing a growing problem with more and more accidents in the workplace involving radiation exposure, experts have said.

"Radiation accidents occur five to six times in 10,000 sources of radiation in the (radiation technology) sector every year in China and most of them are due to human error," said Wang Zuoyuan, former chief of the radiation protection and safety department under the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He was speaking to China Economic Weekly in an article published yesterday.

Transportation errors, equipment failure and radiation sources that were stolen or abandoned were among the main causes of the accidents, Wang said.

The number of radiation sources in the country reached 106,000 at the end of 2008, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

"The development of radiation technology has been swift in recent years and the total number of accidents has surely surpassed the record now," Wang Zhidong, deputy secretary-general of the China Isotope Radiation Association, told China Daily yesterday.

Human errors that cause some of the accidents were often due to "loose management of factories and the poor safety awareness of operators", Wang Zhidong said.

"Competition is fierce. There are a number of small enterprises handling radiation technologies which might lead them to cut costs in safety measures."

The country has successfully used radiation technology in the fields of agriculture, medical testing, drug treatment, food sterilization and other industries, he said.

Most accidents happen in facilities that were built during the early days of the industry. The technology became widespread in China in the early 1990s. Older plants are used by almost half of the more than 200 radiation enterprises in China, according to the China Economic Weekly.

In the latest radiation accident, a leak on June 7 caused a fire at a factory in Kaifeng, Henan province.

Officials are responding to widespread concern among the online community after netizens questioned how the radioactive isotope cobalt-60 leaked at the Limin Radiation Factory in Kaifeng. The factory uses the radioactive material during the sterilization of pepper.

"Radiation technologies, including those used in the sterilization of food, will not do harm to people's health or damage the living environment as long as the scientific standards of radiation protection and operation rules are followed," Wang Zhidong said.

People can get cancer when exposed to certain types of radiation, said Liu Ying, who works for the Chinese Center for Medical Response to Radiation Emergency under the National Institute for Radiological Protection.

"Widespread public anxiety associated with radiation accidents appear to be out of proportion to the radiation induced health effects," Liu said. "The psychological effect in the population is one of the most important health problems."

(China Daily August 4, 2009)