FLEURUS (Belgium), Aug 29: A recent leak of radioactive iodine at a medical laboratory had residents in the southern Belgian town of Fleurus in anxiety on Friday as authorities warned of contamination risks.

After authorities at first said early in the week that the leak represented no danger to people or the environment, they have since decided that precautionary measures are needed.

But the change of tune has fuelled local residents’ fears that they were warned too late about contamination risks.

“We’ve been abandoned,” complained 70-year-old Leopold Gravy, a retired school director in Fleurus, where the leak last weekend caused the most serious nuclear incident ever in Belgium.

Earlier police cars cruised Fleurus streets giving the town’s 20,000 residents instructions over loudspeakers about precautionary measures to take.

The town’s population and residents of villages within a five-kilometre radius were asked not to eat fruit and vegetables from gardens or drink milk from neighbouring farms until further notice, said mayor Jean-Luc Borremans.

“Last week we were told that (the leak) wasn’t serious, Tuesday it was worse and today it’s catastrophic,” said Richard Charlier, a 54-year-old plumber who works in the area.“The information has been bad and untruthful,” said his colleague Roberto Carbini, 58.

Mayor Jean-Luc Borremans acknowledged: “The population is worried, it’s normal. All things nuclear scare people.

“But I have confidence in the experts who tell me that it’s without danger and that only precautionary measures are needed,” he added. “There’s been an incident and not an accident.”

The incident occurred last weekend at the Institut des Radioelements, a laboratory which makes radioisotopes used in medical imaging and treating cancer.

Staff detected a leak of radioactive iodine in a ventilation chimney and alerted Belgium’s Federal Nuclear Safety Control.

The agency gave the leak a rating of three out of seven on an international scale for nuclear incidents, making it the most serious ever detected in the country.

The lab halted production on Tuesday, but the agency said the same day that the leak did not represent a risk to residents in the area or the environment and did not recommend any steps be taken.—AFP