August 04, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 1 429

VIENNA, Aug 3: A small amount of plutonium leaked overnight in an ageing laboratory operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) near Vienna, Austria’s environment ministry said on Sunday.

The leak follows warnings late last year from the head of the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, that the facility at Seibersdorf was outdated and did not meet UN safety standards.

“A sample kept on site exploded, which led to the plutonium leak inside the laboratory,” the ministry said in a statement, citing initial information from the IAEA.

The leak automatically set off an alarm via an air-monitoring system.

No one was in the laboratory at the time and the radioactivity in the air would have been completely contained by the lab’s filters, the ministry said.

It added that the contaminated area had been sealed.

No one had suffered any radiation exposure, environment ministry spokesman Daniel Kapp said, and no one had been in danger because the radiation had been contained within the centre’s security zone.

He said Austrian monitoring centres had detected no increase in radioactivity, but an inquiry would be held into the incident.

The laboratory carries out tests on samples taken during IAEA surveillance missions.

IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei said in November 2007 that the site, which was built in 1970, did not meet UN safety standards. He called for 27.2 million euros from member states to modernise the laboratory.

At the time, El Baradei had spoken of an “ever-growing risk” that key components might break down. These included the ventilation system that is designed to reduce the risk of radioactive leaks.—AFP