STOCKHOLM, Jan 8: At least one person has been exposed to high levels of radiation and dozens of others may have been put at risk by a leaking iridium shipment from Sweden to the United States last week, officials said on Tuesday.

The leak is the most serious nuclear incident reported in Sweden.

The Bern-based nuclear news agency NucNet said in a statement that it had been provisionally rated a “level 3 incident” on the International Nuclear Event Scales (INES).

The shipment consisted of about 1,000 pellets of iridium 192, produced by Sweden’s Studsvik AB and intended for industrial use. The container was sent from Sweden to Paris, where it was reloaded on to a plane bound for the United States and its final destination New Orleans.

The radiation leak was discovered on Jan 3 by a driver delivering the container to New Orleans. It was later calculated that the driver had been exposed to radiation levels of about 3.4 milli-sieverts, or about the amount one person would normally be exposed to during the course of a year.

Dozens of other people also handled the shipment in Sweden, France and the United States.—AFP