NEW DELHI, Oct 23: India’s atomic safety body said on Thursday it was investigating how radioactive scrap metal found its way into lift buttons exported to France and Sweden.

At least four Indian firms were involved in the manufacture of the components, an official said, with the contaminated material appearing to originate from a foundry that may have used imported scrap.

“We are tracking back the whole chain,” said Satya Pal Agarwal, head of the radiological safety division of India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

“We are taking steps in each place. Exporters have been advised to buy monitors to check their materials before exporting.” France’s Mafelec firm delivered thousands of lift buttons to Otis, a subsidiary of the US elevator company, which installed them in at least 500 lifts in the country over the summer.

Otis has said it is now in the process of removing the buttons, after France’s Nuclear Safety Authority announced on Tuesday that 20 workers who handled the lift buttons had been exposed to excessive levels of radiation.

The French nuclear safety agency has said the lift buttons contained traces of radioactive Cobalt 60.

Swedish officials also said they had found faint traces of radioactivity in steel items imported from India.

The components used by Mafelec were supplied by two Indian firms — Bunts and Laxmi Electronics — which purchase inputs from SKM Steels which in turn sourced its materials from a foundry called Vipras Casting, Agarwal said.

“The foundries must monitor their input material for any radioactive contamination before melting,” said Agarwal. “Today it happened with Vipras, tomorrow it can happen with someone else.”

So far India has not been able to ascertain the source of the contaminated scrap Vipras purchased, with foundries relying on several dealers who import from European countries and the United States, among others.

Demand for scrap has soared because of a boom in construction and manufacturing in India, but its regulation and inspection regime is often lax.

Four years ago, 10 workers died in a blast at a steel factory while smelting iron scrap from Iran that contained live ammunition.—AFP