Container filled with cobalt-60 stolen in Mexico

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Fox News: Truck carrying radioactive material stolen in Mexico​

VERACRUZ, Mexico – A cargo truck hauling extremely dangerous radioactive material from used medical equipment was stolen from a gas station in central Mexico, and authorities sent out an alert in six central states and the capital to find it, Mexican officials said Wednesday.

The truck was carrying a metal container of cobalt-60 headed to a nuclear waste facility in the state of Mexico, said Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards. Though the container is heavily sealed in lead, designed to be difficult to break and to survive accidents intact, he said it contains an amount of radioactive material that could do serious damage if opened.

Direct exposure would result in death within a few minutes, he added.

"This is a radioactive source that is very strong," Eibenschutz told The Associated Press on Wednesday, adding that is can be almost immediately fatal, depending on proximity. "The intensity is very big if it is broken."

A Mexican government official with the country's nuclear agency reported at 5 PM CST that the container had been found -- empty.

Given the dire warnings of imminent death resulting from the opening of the container, and the fact that no bodies were reported found around it, this is not good news. The material could easily be used in a dirty bomb, if the thieves have managed to properly shield the material in getting it out of the container.

 

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An update to the story: The nuclear agency says it also found the cobalt-60 package not far from the truck. No explanation as to how it got there without killing the people who moved it.