THOMAS'S BRAZIL TRAVEL TIPS
[Lifted Shamelessly from The Lonely Planet Online]
In Praia da Areia Preta, Guarapari, the beach right in front of the city centre, is narrow and not very beautiful. There are sands of different colours, some of which are highly radioactive. Some people believe that exposure to the radiation of this sand is good for rheumatism and skin diseases, so they cover themselves with it. The tourism industry of Guarapari lives from this belief and therefore you can hardly hear any critical words about it.
I took some sand samples with me and analysed them back home in Vienna at the laboratory of the Austrian Ecology Institute where I work. It turned out that besides thorium, the sand also contains very high concentrations of uranium.
For a radiation protection point of view, staying on the beach for a longer period of time cannot be recommended. Anyway, there is no scientifically sound evidence for any health benefits of radiation. Thorium-232 and its decay products have, together with alpha and beta, very high energy gamma radiation with a virtually infinite range, so that everybody on the beach is immersed in a quite intense gamma radiation field which easily penetrates the body (comparable to x-rays).
Stay off the beach! |
