Over 32,000 potassium iodide pills ordered in 2 days after Pickering nuclear power plant alert error

Tens of thousands of people have placed orders for free potassium iodide pills in the days followinga false alert from the provinceabout an incident at a nuclear plant in Pickering, Ont.

Sunday's alert, which was sent to mobile phones across Ontario, shocked those within a 10-kilometre radius of the Durham Regionplant and even those living farther away.

About an hour after the 7:24 a.m. ET alert,Ontario Power Generation(OPG), the plant's operator, tweeted without explanation that the warning "was sent in error." The Ontario government also later acknowledged the mistake, blaming human error, and issued an apology.

Although the mistake left some people fuming,others stepped up their planning for a real emergency.

Between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon, 32,388 orders wereplaced for potassium iodide tablets through Durham Region'sPrepare To Be Safe website,which is jointly managed by the City of Toronto and OPG.

Typically, OPG says, between100 and 200 orders are placed per month.

The pills can be ingestedto protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine that could be released into the air in a nuclear emergency.

In small quantities, it is an "essential nutrientfor your thyroid gland to function properly," and is "effective in reducing the threat of thyroid cancer to residents at risk of inhaling or ingesting radioactive iodine," according to the Canadian government's website.

The pills are distributedautomatically to homes and businesses within 10 kilometresof every nuclear power plant in Ontario.

Depending on residents' postal codes androad boundaries, people within 10 to 50 kilometresof a plant in the provincecan ordertablets free through the Prepare To Be Safewebsite.

OPG told CBCNews that the majority of orders come from people in the Greater Toronto Area.