Cancer is key predator on Kerala beaches

Coastal belt in the southern state have the highest level of terrestrial radiation.

KOLLAM (KERALA): P Pushpavalli refuses to believe her doctors’ assurances. Though the 55-year-old fisherwoman has been cured of cervix cancer acquired 16 years ago, she is convinced that the abnormality will strike her in some other form. She has seen five of her neighbours and a couple of relatives who lived along the coast off Kollam succumb to the dreaded disease.

Pushpavalli inhabits one of the highest irradiated places on earth. A Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)-funded study in Karunagappally taluka reveals terrestrial radiation levels are much higher than those in the normal background radiation areas. For example, the thorium radiation level in the coastal belt is five to eight times higher than the national average of 1 mGy/year.

The Natural Background Radiation Cancer Registry in Karunagappally, run by the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, has measured radiation levels outside 76,942 houses and inside 71,674 houses in the 12 panchayats that comprise the taluka. Median level exposure in panchayats varied from 0.92mGy/year to 4.82 mGy (milligray)/year. A gray is the dose of one joule of energy absorbed per kg of matter.

Chavara, Neendakara, Panmana and Alappad, rich in monazite deposits, were exposed to maximum level of radiation.

“We don’t know how we get this disease. The sand has something to do with it. If your legs or hands are exposed to the sand for some time, then it aches. Elders say that the sand is unhealthy,” said Pushpavalli.