Post by East Neuk News on Oct 6, 2003 20:05:02 GMT -5
Aid Agencies Scramble to Kaukolastan
East Neukian aid agencies are today preparing to respond to the nuclear disaster in Kaukolastan. Doctors, nurses and support staff from the government's Crisis Task Force will fly out later today to the devastaed country to set up emergency hospitals. Team Bison special forces soldiers, seen here in the protective nuclear-biological-chemical equipment they will be using, are already on their way to assist in search and rescue efforts.
Environmental scientists from the University of Fortuneswell are preparing to advise on a programme of emergency engineering works, including the installation of an experimental water treatment device designed to remove radioisotopes from drinking water. The system, called Serafim, the System for the Extraction of RAdioisotopes from Fluids by Isotopic Mass, was designed by physicist Dr Katie Henshall:
Dr Katie Henshall
University of Fortuneswell
"The system works by creating the right conditions in which lighter, non-radioactive atoms can evaporate, and are collected as a vapour, while the heavier radioisotopes are left at the bottom of the column. The water in the affected area is very heavily radioactive because a large quantity of heavy water fuel and contaminated coolant water has escaped into watercourses.
We will distill and de-ionise the water to remove radioactive metal particles, such as Uranium and Plutonium, then the Serafim will evaporate off the safe water molecules, which we can collect and use, and dispose of the radioactive heavy water molecules."
