The survey aided by Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) has at last acknowledged the dreaded fact that the Monazite sands of Kollam are source of significantly high natural radiation.  

The survey has also identified ‘Karunagapalli’ of the Kollam district as the place with highest background radiation in the world. The Monazite bearing sands of coastal Kollam subjects the residents to an average dose of 4.0 microSievert/year (Sievert is a unit for biologically active radiation dose) with a range of 1.5 to 20 mSv/year. It is proved that the radiation in the area could be as high as 50 mSv/year in some places. About 10 to 15 times that of normal background radiation. 

Shocking news is that 450 new cancer cases are registered every year from the 12 panchayats around Karunagapalli. The survey does ascribe the increase in the cancer cases directly to the high radiation in the area. The most concentrated deposits of Monazites are found along the 55-Km stretch of coast from Neendakara in Kollam district to Purakkad in Alappuzha district in south Kerala. The population of such areas are exposed to high levels of natural background radiation because of the presence of the radioactive metal ‘Thorium’, in the Monazite sands. Similar monazite deposits are also found in ‘Manavalakkurichi’ and ‘Kalpakkam’ in Tamilnadu, ‘Ullal’ in Karnataka and ‘Chatrapur’ in Orissa. 

The first news hinting the above situation was a study in 1976 by some scientists from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi which made a startling announcement that there was a “high prevalence” of mental retardation among the inhabitants in some costal areas of Kerala. 

This was then linked to the possible genetic damage induced by natural radiation from the Thorium rich Monazite sands. The study of AIIMS had generated worldwide attention because the ‘Neendakara’ - ‘Chavara’ - ‘Karunagapally’ - ‘Purakad’ coastal strip where the Monazite sands are found in abound are the most densely populated (4 lakh persons in 192sq km) than other regions in the world with high level of natural background radiation. But the AIIMS study was later shown to be unreliable because the conclusion were based on a comparison of incidence of Down’s Syndrome among the people in the High Background Radiation Area (HBRA) on the Kollam coast with that of a control group in a New Delhi hospital which had no incidence of Down’s Syndrome at all. A normal sampling would show one case of downs syndrome for every 1,000 live births. The AIIMS reports had been the subject of hot scientific debate since it was published even though many later studies in the area failed to substantiate the findings. 

Much of the existing knowledge about the extremely harmful effects of high doses of radioactivity on human beings comes from the survey of the survivors of the Atomic Bomb Explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the harmful effects of prolonged exposure to low doses of radiation is still a cause of concern, especially because of widespread fears about low-level radiation near nuclear power stations. Radio activity was known to cause damage to living tissues and owing its deadly effects, public concern will be always very high. 

Every human being is living in a radiation filled atmosphere caused by natural and man-made activities. Scientists say that every person is bombarded by about 15000 radiation particles per second in the form of cosmic rays. A typical x-ray bombards a person with a few trillion particles of radiation. The immediate effects often follows a threshold minimum dose of exposure, the more severe the dose the more severe the effect.