Caesium-137 alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together with caesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes distributed by the reactor explosion that constitute the greatest risk to health. The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m. This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany. In Scandinavia, some reindeer and sheep exceeded the Norwegian legal limit (3000 Bq/kg) 26 years after Chernobyl. As of 2016 the Chernobyl caesium-137 has decayed by half, but could have been locally concentrated by much
Caesium-137 Caesium-137 Caesium-137 (), or radiocaesium, is a radioactive isotope of caesium which is formed as one of the more common fission products by the nuclear fission of uranium-235 and other fissionable isotopes in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. It is among the most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products because it easily moves and spreads in nature due to the high water solubility of caesium's most common chemical compounds, which are salts. Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30.17 years. About 94.6 percent decays by beta emission to a metastable nuclear isomer of barium: barium-137m (Ba, Ba-137m). The remainder directly