Image source, Norbert Suchanek and Association of Victims of Césio-137 (AV-Césio Archive)
"There was a small opening in one part of the device that emitted a very hypnotizing and very attractive light..."
As news spread about the strange bright blue capsule at the Devair Ferreira scrapyard, neighbors, family and friends gathered to see it for themselves.
Some held tiny shiny fragments in their hands. Others took pieces home to show their families.
No one knew they were handling cesium-137, a highly radioactive material that would trigger Brazil's worst radiation accident.
Devair had purchased the capsule from two trash scavengers who had found it days earlier in an abandoned medical clinic.
Although his brother, Odesson, urged him to throw it away, thinking it was "useless", Devair was fascinated by it and even considered turning it into a gemstone for a ring for his wife.
He would later say that he had fallen in love with the "glow of death."
A week later, dozens of people fell ill from a mysterious illness.
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A close family friend linked the onset of the disease to the arrival of the strange glowing cylinder, so Devair's wife, María Gabriela, took him to a medical center.
He remained on a chair on the patio for the rest of the day and night, until finally a doctor obtained a radiation detector.
The readings were so high that he initially assumed the device was faulty. Then, a second device confirmed the reading.
Shortly after, Odesson received a message from his brother:
"Seek help. The material you touched in the house is radioactive."
According to him, by then, 56 members of Odesson's extended family had been exposed.
Odesson recalled the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, which occurred the previous year.
"When we heard the words 'radioactive material,' I thought, 'That's it, we're all in serious trouble, we're all about to die.'"
Tragically, the first person to die was Leide, Odesson's 6-year-old niece.
She had played with a fragment of cesium-137 after her father brought it home in a matchbox and turned out the lights to show her how it glowed in the dark.
"His mother had just prepared dinner," Odesson says. "Leide picked up an egg and, with her little hand, obviously still contaminated by radiation, ate it."
She died approximately a month later, the same day that her aunt, María Gabriela, Devair's wife, also succumbed after exposure to cesium-137.
Two young people who worked at the scrapyard also died.
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More than 100,000 potentially contaminated Goiânia residents were summoned to undergo testing at the Olympic Stadium, including Odesson.
Those affected were scrubbed with a decontaminating liquid and brushes, and then sprayed with water. They destroyed their clothes and asked them to drink a lot of liquid to cleanse their bodies.
"They told me that if I liked beer, I could drink a lot of it," Odesson says.
So he took their advice and went to a bar owned by a friend.
"But they didn't warn me that wherever I peed would be contaminated, so they ended up demolishing the bathroom in my friend's bar."
"People ran away from us"
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Despite being declared free of infection, Odesson was later admitted to a hospital and placed in isolation on the third floor. His wife could only talk to him from the street.
"I was deeply concerned because his face was completely disfigured and covered in lumps."
A doctor later identified the strange growths on her face as a result of stress, but as fear spread people began to avoid her. "Every time she took the bus and people recognized her, they got off."
Odesson eventually recovered, but returned to a shelter as his family's home was partially demolished after being contaminated.
People he had known all his life began to avoid him.
He remembers ordering a drink at a bar owned by an acquaintance.
"When I was done, I left the glass on the bar. He picked it up with a napkin and threw it in the trash. That really bothered me."
Following the disaster, the government launched a campaign with the slogan "Eu amo Goiânia" or "I love you, Goiânia." Broadcast daily on national radio and television, it was a show of national solidarity with a city in crisis.
After the accident, laws on tracking, surveillance and disposal of radioactive materials in Brazil and other countries were changed.
But for survivors, the fight continued for years with compensation claims, health problems and the lingering stigma associated with the accident.
Odesson was determined to help. He left his job as a bus driver, a job he loved, and began campaigning for survivors' rights, becoming president of the Victims' Association.
"We must fight for the people and make sure this never happens again anywhere in the world. No one, anywhere, should have to go through what we experienced."
Today, almost 40 years later, and in his seventies, Odesson is writing his own memoir of the catastrophe that changed his life forever.
He has also found a sense of peace on a small farm 220 km from Goiânia, surrounded by animals and nature.
"I am a healthy person who is at peace with myself, despite everything I have been through. Thank God."
No small feat for a man who once believed he was about to die.
This article is based on a BBC World Service Outlook episode: "I didn't know bright blue dust was radioactive."
This article was originally written in English and we used an artificial intelligence tool to translate it. A BBC journalist reviewed the text before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
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