Operations resume at Halifax port after short-lived radiation scare

HALIFAX – Cerescorp says normal operations have resumed at its Halifax container port where cylinders carrying radioactive material fell about six metres as they were being unloaded from a ship.

Calvin Whidden, the company’s senior vice-president, says work at the Fairview Cove container terminal in the city’s north end resumed at 8 a.m. Saturday after experts wrapped up their examination of the area and confirmed there was no leakage.

Whidden says workers will finish unloading two container ships that have been waiting since work stopped on Thursday night, when four steel cylinders carrying granular uranium hexafluoride fell from a pallet as they were being lifted off the ship and landed in a contained area of the vessel.

He says the cylinders will be taken off the ship Saturday afternoon and will depart on a truck to their destination in Columbia, S.C., next week.

The city’s fire department says emergency crews left the scene around midnight Saturday after the investigation was complete and a 150-metre evacuation zone was lifted.

Uranium hexafluoride is the chemical compound used in the gas centrifuge process to enrich uranium.