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Comment by ivan4th | Hacker News Reader

BTW, there was an accident in Ukraine (Soviet Union at the time) related to a radioactive capsule that ended up in the wall of an apartment building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...

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Something similar in brazil:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

While the soviet incident was one really bad fuckup, this was a chain of many people fucking up horribly

Videos for people who don't like to read:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhL0xQzPSy8 (16m)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5tEjXGHNeg (6m)

The 1987 Brazilian accident in Goiânia was horrendous because the caesium-137 capsule was breached and there was widespread contamination by radioactive dust. I get chilled to the bone when I read the descriptions of people innocently playing with the curious glow-in-the-dark dust as a novelty, showing to their neighbors and friends.

> The apartment was fully settled in 1980. A year later, an 18-year-old woman who lived there suddenly died. In 1982, her 16-year-old brother followed, and then their mother. [All from leukemia]. [...] A new family moved into the apartment, and their son died from leukemia as well.

> A child's bed was located directly next to the wall containing the capsule.

Naturally occurring radiation might play a part in human tendency to regard certain places as haunted.

Actually "haunted" locations are often linked to carbon monoxide and infrasound, IIRC. We generally don't blame ghosts for mysterious burns or other signs of radiation sickness.

We don't, but a society that doesn't know about radiation or even elementary particles may.

The village doctor in the 1500s diagnosing radiation sickness would be even more of a quack than the one that doesn't apply enough leeches.

i'm pretty sure superstition about haunted locations doesn't come from people repeatedly getting leukemia

lmao, this is the most HN comment

I wonder what happened to that child

It's possible that the apartment came furnished and that the bed being referred to was not a specific child's but rather a bed made for a child in which supposedly multiple children slept in before dying.

The Brazil event and this Ukraine one were discussed at length at [1] a few days ago, check it out if you are interested!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34560399

There was also an incident in the country of Georgia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident

Article says it had a dose rate of 1800 R/year, that is about 18 Sv per year. That's a LOT!

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