
Stolen cobalt-60 found in Mexico; curious thieves likely doomed - bane
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/stolen-cobalt-60-found-in-mexico-curious-thieves-likely-doomed/2013/12/05/262ef990-5d66-11e3-8d24-31c016b976b2_story.html
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ck2
If something is that dangerous, shouldn't there be armored escorts, lojacks
and all sorts of other security measures on it?

Isn't it criminally liable to transport something this lethal so carelessly?

I mean people were ready to declare this a terrorist's dream of dirty-bomb
material.

We can't take more than 3 ounces of shampoo on a plane but actual dangerous
stuff, no problem, just throw it on a truck.

~~~
DanielStraight
I suspect this kind of transportation is far more common than most people
realize.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that "3 million packages of
radioactive materials are shipped each year in the United States."[1]

As for security measures: "The shipper must also meet the Department of
Transportation's requirements for shipment of the nuclear material including
route selection, vehicle condition and placarding, driver training, package
marking, labeling, and other shipping documentation."[2] I suspect most of
this was in place, or at least the Mexican equivalent.

Nothing about armed escorts is mentioned for general transportation of
radioactive material. For spent nuclear fuel, "armed escorts [are required] in
heavily populated areas."[2]

For another data point, here's a supplier of Cobalt-60's page on their safety:
[http://www.nordion.com/gamma/nordion_cobalt.html](http://www.nordion.com/gamma/nordion_cobalt.html)
Again, there is no indication that armed escort would be expected, simply
secure vehicles that won't leak radiation while delivering it or in the event
of an accident.

All that said, Cobalt-60 is used for sterilization of medical equipment,
radiotherapy, food irradiation, and quite a few other things. It's probably
not _that_ hard to obtain if you really want it.

[1]
[https://forms.nrc.gov/materials/transportation.html](https://forms.nrc.gov/materials/transportation.html)

[2]
[https://forms.nrc.gov/materials/transportation/shipping.html](https://forms.nrc.gov/materials/transportation/shipping.html)

~~~
ck2
Basically it sounds like a "dirty bomb" is not if, but when, someday. Lovely.

~~~
cstuder
According to the Wired article about the radioactive container in Genoas port
(2011,
[http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/10/ff_radioactivecargo/al...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/10/ff_radioactivecargo/all/1)),
Cobalt-60 isn't the first choice for dirty bombs. There are nastier isotopes
out there.

~~~
jgeorge
I agree it's not the first choice for a dirty bomb, but if you actually have
access to a truckload of it, I can presume it's "good enough" rather than
passing on it in the hopes of finding something better.

~~~
gh02t
A truckload isn't all that much. I doubt the truck in the article was carrying
more than a couple grams of the actual material. The lab grade sources we use
(that are considered safe to handle as long as you don't eat them) are on the
order of micrograms.

------
shabble
In a previous loss of Co-60 in Mexico (back in 1983), the material ended up
being melted with recycled steel into rebar and used in all sorts of
construction, until it was discovered largely by accident when a delivery
truck carrying contaminated materials set off an alarm at Los Alamos[1]

It's also interesting that the Chenobyl Disaster was first detected in the
West 2 days after the event, when detectors at a nuclear power station in
sweden tripped their thresholds, and nobody could find a local explanation for
the numbers[2].

[1]
[http://www.window.state.tx.us/border/ch09/cobalto.html](http://www.window.state.tx.us/border/ch09/cobalto.html)

[2]
[http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull283/...](http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull283/28302793032.pdf)

------
LoonyPandora
Sounds like a very similar chain of events to the Goiânia_accident [0]

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident)

~~~
Trufa
If you understand spanish, I recommend this song:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YIalaC0M_A](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YIalaC0M_A)

It's a Uruguayan folk song about the accent, it's a really nice song but very
very sad.

(If you don't understand Spanish, you might enjoy it anyway).

~~~
rjbwork
I think you mean accident, not accent. I was a bit confused at first.

------
zrail
"They will, without a doubt, die."

Pretty grim news for the thieves but you can't say they weren't warned.
Medical waste has pretty big warning stickers all over, and you'd think the
radiation symbol would be pretty universal in this day and age.

~~~
skj
Fortunately/unfortunately, it's also probably not true. A previous incident in
which people were exposed to Cobalt-60 over the course of several days caused
3 to die, and several more to become ill. If they just opened it up, saw it
was a big chunk of nonsense, and left it on the side of the road, they'll
probably be fine.

~~~
Houshalter
Well according to a comment on the reddit discussion 28 seconds of exposure
from a meter away is a lethal dose. No one just opens something for only 28
seconds, or stands a full meter away from it. God forbid if they actually
touched the stuff.

~~~
tedunangst
Wouldn't that require knowing how much Cobalt-60 there was? Or is it always
shipped in standard sized units?

------
_quasimodo
Those poor idiots.

I feel nothing but disgust reading the comments cheering their lethal
poisoning.

~~~
ck2
I could be wrong but it won't just be the idiots that die, innocents that come
in contact with their bodies could also become ill.

~~~
shabble
I don't believe Co-60 is capable of activating (making radioactive) other
materials to any significant degree, so the danger is really only from direct
exposure to the source material. So you get irradiated, but you don't become
radioactive. If they were handling the material directly, there's a chance
they contaminated themselves and their clothing, which could be transmissible.
(c.f. Goiânia incident "[The scrapyard owner's daughter] was also fascinated
by the blue glow of the powder, and applying it to her body, showed it off to
her mother. Dust from the powder fell on the sandwich she was consuming.")

Obviously the guys opening the shielding and anyone in the vicinity of where
that happened, where it was stored, or dumped is at risk, but it also sounds
like the sources were encapsulated into pellets which makes incidental dust
contamination much less of a problem than in previous incidents where it gets
broken up and mixed with dirt, etc.

~~~
vibrolax
AFAIK, non-radioactive materials are activated by neutron bombardment. Co60 is
primarily a gamma emitter.

------
ams6110
_The prospect that material that could be used in a radioactive dirty bomb had
gone missing sparked an urgent two-day hunt_

Seems like this could have been considered beforehand; maybe transporting this
stuff in a lone vehicle with no security is not a good idea?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Depends. Lone truck with no security shouldn't attract much attention. But,
you can satellite track it, and the container and have an always on
communication path to the driver, and alert police to be ready if the driver
burps in the wrong tone.

------
girvo
Poor bastards. Curiosity killed the cat, I guess...

------
antimagic
Schroedinger's lojackers?

------
ScotterC
Cobalt 60 isn't particularly dangerous. I remember holding it in my bare hand
in chemistry lab (encouraged by the teacher). Also, I'm never worried about
when this stuff goes missing because it's so easy to detect to the smallest
measurement - which means it's usually found quickly as was the case here.

Now if this was Cesium 137 that would be a wholly different matter

~~~
nate_meurer
Cobalt-60 is more dangerous than Caesium-137 in every way except for chemical
reactivity. Any significant amount is _extremely_ dangerous. Don't be fooled:
what you held in your hand was a vanishingly small source.

This little pdf has some metrics for comparison:

orise.orau.gov/files/reacts/radiological-terms-quick-reference.pdf‎

Edit: I haven't the brains to make the link above active, but if you search
for the link on google it will take you there.

~~~
ScotterC
Linked failed. Repost please.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
[http://orise.orau.gov/files/reacts/radiological-terms-
quick-...](http://orise.orau.gov/files/reacts/radiological-terms-quick-
reference.pdf)

