Cold Open

It’s September 13th, 1987, outside an abandoned hospital in the Brazilian city of Goiania.

With a snap of metal, a locked door gives way, and bright sunlight streams to a gloomy, dust-filled hallway. Silhouetted in the doorway are two young men. They peer behind them, checking if anyone is watching. Then they step inside.

The first intruder is Roberto dos Santos Alves, a local metal scavenger. He listens for a moment. There’s usually a security guard on patrol in this hospital, but today he’s nowhere to be seen. The building is silent. Roberto knows they still have to be quick though. He gestures to the man behind him. His friend, Wagner Pereira, pushes a wheelbarrow through the doorway and the two thieves set about exploring.

They search through the empty wards and offices, rifling through desk drawers and dark closets, looking for anything they can steal and then sell — until, suddenly, Roberto stops. Something has caught his eye. And he whistles to get Wagner’s attention.

Roberto has spotted a large machine, standing in its own special, white-tiled room. It’s bigger than a refrigerator, and the two men have no idea what it is. But Roberto is sure it must have parts that will be worth something at a junkyard. So, he pulls out tools from his pocket and sets to work.

Roberto pops off a metal panel with his screwdriver. Revealed underneath is a stainless steel cylinder about the size of a one-gallon paint can. Worst case, Roberto figures he can sell it for scrap. But best case, it might contain something even more valuable.

He undoes every bolt and screw he can find, and then with one final heave, he pulls the canister free. Then he loads it into the wheelbarrow with the other parts from the machine.

Soon enough they decide they can’t carry any more so move to make an exit. The pair darts quickly through the corridors back to the door where they came in. And when they’re sure the coast is clear, the two men stroll out of the building with the haul in their wheelbarrow. Then, they head back to Roberto’s home. It’s time for them to examine their newfound treasure.

Both Roberto and Wagner are oblivious to the danger they’ve just put themselves in. Until its closure two years earlier in 1985, the building they just robbed was a private radiotherapy facility. A hospital for cancer patients.

And what Roberto and Wagner found, wasn't just scrap metal. The canister is part of a machine used to treat tumors, containing radioactive material. And when opened, this Pandora’s Box will lead to disaster. Thousands will be contaminated and several will die. All because two young men tried to make a fast buck on September 13th, 1987.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is September 13th, 1987. The Goiânia Accident: South America's Nuclear Tragedy.

Act One

It’s September 18th, 1987, five days after two metal scavengers robbed an abandoned hospital in the central Brazilian city of Goiânia.

Now, one of the men, Roberto dos Santos Alvez, sits in his garden staring at the strange canister they found. It rests in the shade of a mango tree, its smooth metal surface pocked and scarred where Roberto has tried to gain access to whatever is hidden inside.

The young thief is frustrated though. Not only has he been unable to fully disassemble the canister, but he and his partner Wagner have been feeling more and more ill ever since they returned from their scavenging trip. Both men have been vomiting. Wagner has been having dizzy spells and one of his hands has swollen, bearing mysterious marks that look like burns.

A doctor has advised them that it’s most likely food poisoning or an allergic reaction to something, and they should just rest. But the problem both men face is that if they don’t work, they and their families don’t eat. So regardless of how sick they’re feeling, work must go on.

Roberto rises on weary legs and walks across the garden to the mango tree. He spreads out an assortment of tools on the ground beside him and attempts once again to open the cylinder. But try as he might, Roberto just can’t work out how to get inside the thick metal canister. Eventually, he gives up trying to finesse the canister open and opts for brute force instead.

On the side of the canister, there’s a tiny window, and Roberto thinks that it looks like it's a possible weak point. So, he picks up a screwdriver, and jabs at the glass with the blade of the tool as hard as he can. After several attempts, the glass first cracks, then shatters.

When it does, a powdery substance spills out. Roberto’s not sure what to make of it. The granules are white in color, and look a little like salt, but Roberto figures it must be something far more exotic than that. Naively, he wonders if it could be gunpowder. And to test this theory, he gets a cigarette lighter from his pocket and tries to set it on fire. Thankfully for Roberto, there’s not much of a reaction when he holds the flame to the powder. But the young man is far from safe. There is a hidden danger here, something he cannot see: 'Radiation'.

The powder is a substance known as Cesium 137. It’s a by-product of nuclear fission and used in radiation therapy for treating cancer. Stored in its protective canister, the Cesium poses little threat. But when the substance is not properly contained, the levels of radiation it emits can be fatal. As little as four teaspoons could contaminate an area up to ten square miles. And the amount Roberto has stumbled upon is over five times that quantity.

And even now, as Roberto scrutinizes the powder, trying to decide what to do next, his body is soaking in potentially lethal levels of radiation. Finally, Roberto steps away with a frustrated shake of his head. Perhaps he’s not convinced that this is going to be the big payday he hoped for, or maybe he’s feeling too unwell to continue tinkering - whatever it is, Roberto makes a decision that might yet save his life. He gets rid of the canister and its strange contents.

He contacts a local scrapyard owner by the name of Devair Ferreira. The two men haggle over a price, eventually striking a deal for Devair to take the canister off Roberto’s hands for twenty-five dollars. And soon, one of Devair’s employees appears outside Roberto’s house with a wheelbarrow to fetch the purchase.

Roberto is happy to see it go. Free of the container he's puzzled over for days, he heads back inside his home to lie down. Maybe now, he can rest up and shake off the nausea that’s been bugging him.

Roberto may have dodged a bullet by offloading his ill-gotten goods, but all he has done is unwittingly pass on the problem to someone else. Devair Ferreira’s employee will now be poisoned by the Cesium as well. And he won’t be the last to be exposed. As the man trundles his wheelbarrow through the city’s streets, and toward his boss’s scrapyard, he will leave a trail of radiation in his wake that will have deadly consequences.

Act Two

It’s September 18th, 1987, five days after the theft of a radioactive canister from a hospital in Goiânia, Brazil.

Scrapyard owner Devair Ferreira stands in the doorway to a garage he owns. The place is littered with every size and shape of scrap metal imaginable, all stacked in precarious-looking towers. In the corners, it sags against the walls like drifts of snow.

It’s been a long day for Devair, and as the shadows lengthen, he starts to pull the door closed behind him. But as he does, something catches his eye and he stops, squinting into the gloom. Over on the far side of the garage is his latest acquisition - a metallic canister he purchased from the scavenger Roberto dos Santos Alves. It looked intriguing enough in the daytime, but now, in the darkness, it emits a ghostly blue glow.

Devair has never seen anything like it. He steps back into the garage and picks his way through the maze of scrap metal to take a closer look. He stares, mesmerized. And he begins to wonder if the powder inside the canister could be some form of crushed gemstone, or even something supernatural. The light is just so beautiful, that Devair decides he must take the canister home to show his wife.

But the blue light is a warning sign, created by the radioactive Cesium 137 as it interacts with air molecules. Thanks to the crack in the tiny glass window made by Roberto, deadly radiation is spilling out of the canister and into the surroundings.

And when he takes the canister home with him, it’s not just Devair’s family that will be affected. Over the next three days, word gets around his neighborhood of the mysterious glowing device in his possession. Family and friends flock to Devair’s house to see it for themselves.

During one of these visits, a neighbor offers to try and extract more of the powder from the canister. Devair watches as his friend grabs a screwdriver and manages to pry out several more grains of the powder through the tiny hole in the glass.

Then Devair generously shares them with the people in his home. Some of the neighbors dab the powder on their skin like carnival glitter. One asks if he can take some home, to fashion into a glowing ring for his wife. Devair’s own brother dips a finger in it and draws a cross with the substance on his abdomen. He then asks to take a sample to show his six-year-old daughter, Leida, and Devair agrees.

But after the throng of visitors dies down, Devair can’t help noticing that his wife, Maria, looks a little washed out. As the evening draws on, she starts to vomit and Devair grows worried. He takes her to a local hospital, where Maria is told by doctors that she’s either suffering from food poisoning or an allergy of some sort, the same exact wrong diagnosis as the two men who sold her husband the canister received. But neither she nor Devair have any way of connecting the dots between Maria’s illness, and those of Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Pereira. No one suspects the real cause of their sickness.

So, after Devair brings Maria back home from the hospital with orders to rest, and her mother arrives to look after her, the exposure to the deadly substance lurking in the house only increases. And Maria's mother is not the only family member who’s now in danger.

A few days later, Devair has another visit from his brother. Who tells Davair how much his six-year-old daughter Leida loves playing with the glittering powder. She is so taken with it that she spreads the substance all over the floor where she eats her lunch.

Devair is glad to hear that he's delighted his niece, but he is growing tired of the novelty and the constant crowds of people at his door asking to see the blue light. So, he’ll decide to sell the canister to another scrapyard. And even more people will fall sick before anyone suspects the true source of the illness. By then, it will be too late for some of the residents of Goiânia. A number of them are already condemned to die.

Act Three

It’s September 28th, 1987, fifteen days after the radioactive canister was stolen.

At the home of scrap dealer Devair Ferreira, his wife Maria shifts uncomfortably in her bed. She feels sicker than she ever has before. Whatever illness has her in its grip, it's refusing to let go.

It's been a week since her husband Devair brought the metal canister home from the scrapyard. And Maria’s illness started the very day she first laid eyes on the mysterious instrument and now, she has become suspicious about the glowing powder it contained. It may just be a coincidence, but Maria thinks that if her sickness was food poisoning or an allergy like the doctors say, then it would have started to wear off by now.

There’s only one way to be sure. Maria rises from her bed on unsteady feet and heads out. Finding one of Devair’s employees, she orders him to follow her. The pair travel to the rival scrapyard that bought the canister from her husband three days ago, and Maria convinces the owner to let her take the item to a doctor for inspection.

She has her employee scoop the canister into a bag and the two of them take a bus to a nearby health clinic. Maria walks into the doctor's office and places the bag on his desk. She tells him whatever this thing is, it’s making her family sick.

The doctor at the clinic put the pieces together. He’s seen a number of people these past few days with the same symptoms and now suspect that Maria and the others might be suffering from radiation poisoning.

The canister is placed in a deserted courtyard until it can be tested for radioactivity. When it is, the results confirm the doctor’s worst fears.

But the Goiânia Accident, as this disaster will come to be known, can at last start to be contained.

More than twenty-five square miles of land is checked for radiation. Eighty-five houses are identified as contaminated and almost half must be demolished. But while homes can be rebuilt, the same is not true of lives.

More than a hundred thousand people are examined and screened for radiation poisoning. Four of the exposed cannot be helped. While the men who started this, Roberto and Wagner, both survive, Maria Ferreira, her six-year-old niece Leida, and two scrapyard employees do not.

All four deaths could have been avoided. It’s later revealed that in May 1987, four months before the incident, the former owners of the abandoned hospital tried to recover their equipment from the building. But they were prevented from doing so by a disagreement with the owners of the land the hospital was built on. It was a legal dispute with deadly consequences. The medical equipment, including the machine that contained the Cesium, was left behind in the hospital and abandoned - until two young men looking for scrap metal broke into the building and triggered the worst nuclear disaster in South American history on September 13th, 1987.

Outro

Next on History Daily. September 16th, 1920. A horse-drawn wagon explodes in the middle of New York City's financial district, killing 30 people.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Katrina Zemrak.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Rob Scragg.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.